More Than One Way to Skin a Cat
by AverageFish
Summary: Severus remembered dying—that last hopeless look into Lily green eyes. Now he's back in the past, inexplicably in the infant body of Harry Potter. Oh, and there's something wrong with Dudley. Weirdness ensues. A different time travel fix-it. Likely the oddest Severitus you'll ever read. Inspired by Path of Decision—I See the Moon—Athey's Rebirth. Betad by Eider Down. Complete.
1. An Uncomfortable Truth

More Than One Way to Skin a Cat (Inspired by Athey's _Rebirth _— lulu42's _Path of Decision _— hctiB-notsoB's _I See the Moon_)

Warnings: Some swearing, some angst, some mental illness. Moderate amount of crack. Strong Canon divergence.  
No underage/no pairing/no smut.

Thank you, _ad infinitum_, to my beta and my friend **Eider Down**. His fic _The Second String _is over at /s/13010260

_To Skin a Cat_'s plot continues 'til the end of 1995. Then, after a bit of transition and a time skip, the Post-Hogwarts **sequel **_**Lepidoptera** _takes place with a T-rated SS/HP pairing. Again, no smut/no lemons.

.

I am defining Severitus as _Severus raises Harry_, not the actual biological relationship.  
For plot reasons Dudley's birth date has been shifted from June 1980 to October 1979 and Hermione's birthday from 19th to 29th September.

… …

The Unfortunate Truth

He remembered dying, bleeding out, his consciousness barely there.

He remembered pain. He remembered his one last look into those green eyes, doomed as they were to join him soon in death.

His heart ached, as his neck ached, as his body ached.

He greeted death as a friend.

… …

He didn't expect to wake up. It was rather disconcerting, really. One moment he was drifting away, and the next he was aware of his body again, just as sore as before.

It felt approximately the way he imagined coming back from the brink of death should feel like. Which is to say, fucking awful.

His forehead hurt like someone had stabbed him, except Severus had been stabbed before and this was markedly worse.

Severus made to get up, because lying here dying wasn't helping anyone.

He toppled over, entirely too weak, and fell against—

_Were those bars? _Somebody had bothered to heal him from Nagini's bite, proceeded to stab him in the face with a cursed blade, _and then put him behind bars?_

He could see the room he was in, inexplicably high-ceilinged. There was a giant form lying on the ground—his captor had likely fallen asleep. _Who knew how long they had been waiting for him to wake up?_

Someone stormed in them, and Severus tensed, trying to ready himself. He did not know if they were friend or foe, who had won the Final Battle. Either way, they likely thought him a villain.

Black robes and swinging black hair swooped in and—

—ignored him. Completely. The form fell over the giant on the floor, making choked gasping noises Severus admitted sounded like he did himself, when very upset.

He surreptitiously checked, but the noises weren't coming from his own mouth; his own face was sticky with drying blood, not tears.

There were sounds from above, like a nearing freight train. The grieving man cursed, looked around wildly and Disapparated just as feet came thudding up wooden stairs. A voice was shouting, moaning in its approach. "No, no, no, no. I'll—I'll kill him!"

_This did not bode well._

The _possibly-sleeping-but-probably-dead_ giant's head had shifted and Severus could see brilliant red strands pouring across wooden floorboards.

The cursing man tripped into the room, gasped, cursed again, pointed his wand.

Severus was suddenly completely helpless, trapped in a body bind. The giant swept him up and held him against his shoulder. Severus could see the scene from above, now. A woman, crumpled before a crib. Crimson hair spilling everywhere.

He swallowed. He'd bet everything that under closed lids would be startling green eyes.

Something cold and dark clenched inside him, the reality of his situation looming like the gaping maw of a very, very long drop.

His throat made a sound almost identical to the one the other man had made, the man that had Apparated away after finding Lily's body.

Severus didn't know how this had happened. He didn't know why this had happened. He wasn't even entirely sure _what_ had happened.

"Hagrid!" Severus' captor's voice rumbled through him. "Here, take Harry for me, you can borrow my bike. Bring him to Poppy, keep him safe."

Despite Severus' best efforts, this toddler body was too young. It slipped out of his control, as the engine's lullaby roared him to sleep.

… …

Severus awoke to bright light—and Tuney Evans pursing her lips at him.

It was all he could do not to have a burst of accidental magic right then and there.

… …

The Boy Who Lived (in the Cupboard)

_There once was a boy who lived in a cupboard—with the shoes.  
He was so young, such a child, he didn't know what to do.  
So he ate his chicken broth, and a big slice of bread,  
Sunk himself in Occlumency as he went off to bed. _

Over the next week Severus learned that Petunia Evans, now Petunia Dursley, had not mellowed with age.

She tried, he knew that she tried. He could see it in the way she couldn't look Severus in the eyes without her upper lip trembling. The way she would sit sometimes watching him and his cousin Dudders—_and wasn't that the worst name ever_—as they slept. The way she made sure her grief was poured out quietly, in small doses, where it would not disturb her oaf of a husband or the two toddlers now in her care.

She fed them, changed them and took them outside at the same times every day. When they went shopping, she managed to budget extra diapers for her nephew and a bar of chocolate split three ways.

The helium balloon bearing the number two drooped lower with every passing day since Dudders' birthday.

… …

For the tenth night in a row, Dudders had woken them all with his screams. Severus stood in his crib to watch Tuney tend to him, soothe the limp blond hair on the boy's brow.

Severus had heard of colicky children, but it was like his cousin did nothing but sleep, wail, and stare into space with an expression that, on someone older than two, would seem forlorn.

"I'm so sorry, dear," Tuney said, blinking at Severus with unconcealed exhaustion. "He's just sick, he isn't usually this cranky. You'll see. Oh, but I wish it didn't have to be all of us he's waking up every night."

The solution to this, apparently, was that Severus was getting his own room, as far from his cousin's bedroom as possible. In fact, he was given a cupboard. Under the stairs.

It was as fastidiously clean as Tuney kept the rest of the house, had room for the crib and shelf of Dudder's castoffs. He got a brand new teddy bear though, brandished by Tuney almost as an apology.

Severus named it Sebastian and drew a lighting bolt on its forehead, a reminder of the child he was now—and also wasn't. He wondered, not without a good portion of guilt and some barely suppressed horror, what had happened to the real Harry Potter.

… …

Over the next half year Dudders began to sleep better, and Severus toilet trained himself to dispense with the humiliation of having his diapers changed. Vernon and Tuney fussed over Dudders, praising his every vapid, inane, childish thought.

Severus did his best to disappear into the background. Observing, or sinking into memories, wondering _why_ and _why me_ and _why now_ and _why this_.

He did not bother himself with the _hows_. It was not his place to question the ways of the Gods. Because what could this be, if not some fresh hell wrought upon him by someone insisting he did not deserve to ever, in life as in death, catch a break?

… …

Playing the Long Game

Severus had not realised that children were so daft. When Draco had been born, Severus had hardly occupied himself with the infant. He vaguely recalled there had been much wailing, a lot of shit and eventually stories of _he smiled today_ and _he does this thing where he tries to walk and then he topples over and it's so—_

Lucius and Narcissa had regressed from haughty politician-socialites, to people who could hold lengthy discussions over intricacies of baby-everything. Severus had avoided them until Draco was old enough to be taught to play chess.

Dudders was five now. He still spent more time watching dust motes than should be able to entertain him. He sometimes had night terrors, followed by a day's worth of Tuney cooing over his every move. He was also, thankfully, old enough for Severus to teach him to play chess.

The child had an odd habit of collecting broken things. A bent spoon. A cracked mug. The pencil that had somehow been gnawed entirely in half. Marge's Bulldog's eviscerated squeaky duck, sans squeaker. A single walkie-talkie.

A broken mirror.

Dudders would stare at Severus sometimes, until his vacant blue-green eyes watered. He would always drink in the attention his parents showered upon him, but whenever he was given some treat he'd go over to his cousin and share it.

It was endearing, in a disturbing way.

Severus had not been around very many children, which had been intentional rather than a happenstance, thank you very much. But he could tell_—_there was something not quite right with Dudders Dursley.

At least the chess games weren't half bad.

… …

It took until they started primary school until someone finally got Severus glasses. Hideous NHS frames aside, it was utterly _brilliant_. The world was his fucking oyster. He could read bus stop signs, and the terribly childish alphabet that adorned his classroom's walls.

Dudley—_Severus had yet to decide if this legal name was an improvement from 'Dudders'_—had the attention span of a seven-year-old who regularly had staring contests with things only he could see living in the mistletoe. The teachers talked amongst themselves about autism, unaware that they had an ex-spy in the class who was undeterred by closed doors.

Personally, Severus thought Dudley was just a bit different, and maybe there actually were very interesting things that the rest of them couldn't see. The child talked, walked and had learned to read very quickly. These adults just couldn't appreciate _different_ without insisting on diagnosing some disorder.

Severus was offended on Dudley's behalf. And if he paid a little extra attention to his cousin, to make sure he wasn't picked on…well, nobody had to be any the wiser.

… …

Let me know what you think. Your reviews are what make posting worthwhile.


	2. The Letter, and the Other Letter

The Letter, and the Other Letter

"It'll look just like the others when I'm done with it, Harry," Tuney was saying as they collectively wrinkled their noses at the elephant skins dyeing in the kitchen sink.

Severus very much doubted it. He also very much doubted he'd be going to Stonewall High. It was June, and he was almost eleven—Minerva would be sending the Hogwarts acceptance letters out any day now. He wondered if he would be getting the 'muggleborn' package, as a muggle-raised. Faintly, he recalled Hagrid having been sent to do Harry's shopping—back when Severus had been a professor, not a ten-year-old on hash-and-bacon duty.

"Get the mail, Dudley," Vernon's moustache had a bit of egg in it. Severus wasn't sure if it was better to tell him or let him be.

The boy had been unusually present all morning, but now he had apparently gotten lost on the way from the door to the kitchen.

"What are you doing, lad? Checking for letter bombs?"

Forks clinked quietly against plates as none of them laughed. It was a poor joke—Vernon's boss' friend had actually received an explosive not a month ago.

Dudley came back in, passed everything to his father except for a creamy envelope with emerald ink.

Severus' heart lurched in his chest. He watched the letter, his letter, his Hogwarts letter—

Dudley passed it to Tuney, and Severus died a little as her lips pursed. A neat nail broke the wax seal.

"I suppose I should have been expecting this," she muttered, almost as if to herself. "Well…well, then." And she passed Severus his letter with the envelope addressed to _The Cupboard Under the Stairs, Little Whinging, Surrey_.

Severus hugged it to his chest, Sebastian the Bear having been relegated to a shelf in Dudley's Room-of-Broken-Things when the button eyes had popped off.

"Dudders, dearest, I think it's time we moved some of your stuff and gave Harry a proper bedroom. With a window, you know?"

Vernon finally looked up from his reading, just in time to catch Dudley's high pitched keening noise. "What's this, then? Dudders 's a growing boy, just like his Da. Needs room to grow, or he'll be stunted. Like a goldfish."

This prompted a stifled sob. Dudley's goldfish had lasted two weeks. The boy had been inconsolable with grief.

"Well, Vernon dear," Tuney said, her voice quivering oddly, "it seems our boys will be needing entirely different uniforms. They're going to Hogwarts."

Three things were bothering Severus. First of all, since when did Tuney refer to him as one of her boys? Second, _they_ were going to Hogwarts?

And finally, Vernon was turning an alarming shade of puce.

"OH, LOOK AT THE TIME." Vernon's chair toppled as the man lurched to his feet.

They collectively looked. It was quarter to eight. On a Saturday.

"I'LL BE LATE TO WORK. BYE, PETAL, DUDDERS—" Both were assaulted with an eggy kiss, and the man was gone.

"So, I—" Tuney swallowed. "I need to clear the table. Dudley, Harry, why don't you go upstairs and start clearing up some space in Harry's new bedroom?"

They trudged off, Severus still with his letter clutched in his hands like the lifeline it was.

Dudley spoke softly. "It's not that I don't want you to have a room, I just…" He gestured the chaos before them helplessly. "I keep hoping the missing pieces will show up. But instead it's just more broken things, and nothing fits."

Severus' eyebrows twitched at the…the _everything_. "What if we place an additional shelf here, and then your belongings can remain in my room?" It wasn't like he wouldn't be at Hogwarts anyway. And Dudley had something waif-like to him, despite his size. It was in the way his hair was permanently charged with static electricity. Or perhaps, the glassiness in his eyes.

By the time Tuney had finished buffing the kitchen sink they had done about as well as could be expected for two boys given a cleaning task.

"So, my sister Lily, she was your mum, Harry," Tuney began.

They sat on the couch and stared at her. She had raised them too politely for them to voice their collective thought of, _yes, it is not news that we are, in fact, related_.

"She didn't die in a car crash."

All three of them winced. This was taking _tactlessness _to new heights.

"I—I didn't know how to tell you, when you were little. But you're big enough to understand now: there was a bad man and a bit of a war and your mum and dad were very brave but…"

Severus stared at her. He had no words for this.

"I'm so sorry, Harry. Would you like a hug?"

Severus recoiled on instinct, and Tuney pretended not to see the crack in what could have been a loving relationship between aunt, and quasi-son.

Broken, like something from Dudley's collection.

"My sister was m—magical, you see," Tuney continued. "A witch, but the good kind. With a wand and flying broomstick and potions…. She went to a magical school to learn all those magic things, and you'll both be going there too. But, as wizards, not as witches. Because you're boys. My little boys. All grown up." She made a muffled sound Severus ignored, which may have been a sob.

There were many things Severus was not equipped to handle, and crying women were foremost among them. Whenever his Slytherins had bawled with homesickness or broken down from exam stress, he'd thrown his colleague Aurora at them and hoped for the best.

In this case, Dudley had taken the initiative, and was patting his mother's shoulder soothingly. Severus assumed it was soothing, at least. She seemed to be calming down.

"Do you have any questions?" Tuney almost managed to ask without hiccuping.

Dudley and Severus exchanged a look, and shook their heads no. They were going to Hogwarts. _Hogwarts_.

… …

Cauldrons and Goblins and Wands (Oh My!)

They took the bus to Charing Cross soon after, with Tuney clutching their hands tightly. Her voice did not falter as she asked Tom to let them through to Diagon Alley, and her only reaction to the sight of the chaotic street was to turn up her nose.

Lucius would be proud.

At their first stop, Gringotts, she exchanged a month's worth of spending money for Galleons and Sickles. Well, mostly Sickles and not very many Galleons.

Severus wished he had a way to inform her he'd inherited a vault full of Potter gold, but as it was the most he could do was steer them, subtly, to a second hand shop just into Knockturn. Tuney was too muggle to know, but Dudley hesitated for an instant at the intersection, eyes staring wider than usual.

Severus wondered what invisible things the boy was seeing thrumming through the air to justify that brief look of horror.

Everything bar their wands and one set of robes was efficiently purchased down Knockturn. They couldn't go to Severus' usual potions supplier, but that was alright. He knew how to get past his own wards to raid the potions master's pantry, after all.

A set of standard robes, black, were fitted without incident, except for a little 'meep' from one of Malkin's assistants as she caught sight of the scar on Severus' forehead. He scowled with enough fury to cause her mouth to click back shut.

Then they were trying wands. Tuney insisted Dudders go first, beaming with pride when twenty minutes of testing resulted in a match manifesting in happy, Patronus-like wisps. Hawthorn and Dragon Heartstring, unusually long at fourteen inches. _Dudley would have his hands full with that._

"We'll be just across the road getting ice cream, alright Harry?"

Severus barely glanced at her. He knew, unfortunately, what was coming.

"Ah, a tricky customer. Two in one day! I daresay we'll be seeing interesting things from the both of you, Master Potter."

Ollivander was frantic, and Severus had tried half the shop until finally, that fateful stick of Holly.

"Curious, how very curious," Ollivander began. Severus scowled, threw down his seven Galleons, and left.

… …

Vernon did not come home much that week, and when he did it was to see his son sprawled across the couch reading potions texts. Severus radiated approval at his cousin, while Vernon radiated reluctant, befuddled acceptance.

"Can't we send him to Smeltings? The freaks won't come and take him away, will they? They _can't_. He's our son!"

Severus had not lost his penchant for snooping behind closed doors, for overhearing conversations meant not to be overheard.

"Remember how his toys would rattle when he was a baby, having those terrible nightmares? No, Vernon, he has to go there. They'll teach him to control it. What if it's m-magic, that's making him so…you know? Maybe they can make him better."

Severus snuck back to his room. He had wondered at that, why there had never been a Dursley in Potter's year. Evidently the boy's parents had decided to send him to a public school instead. Dudley likely only had very low magic levels, if the Ministry had allowed it—nearly a squib.

God, Severus would have to be watching out for his almost-squib cousin at Hogwarts, too. He could already see it: Dudders falling off his broom because he was distracted in flying lessons, Dudders forgetting to put on shoes and stepping on a Toothed Tulip in Herbology—

Dudders getting lost and accidentally stumbling upon the Cerberus that Albus was keeping off the Charms corridor.

_Oh bloody buggering fuck_, there was the whole debacle with the Philosopher's Stone coming up. Hadn't Harry faced off against Quirrelord in the last week of the school term? _But Severus could skip that, surely._ The timeline wouldn't change if he let Albus' trap spring shut.

And then, in fourth year, when the Dark Lord Portkeyed Severus to his resurrection, he would be ready. The war would be over before it even began.

He just had to make sure he didn't change things too much until that point.

… …


	3. The Keeper of the Keys

The Keeper of the Keys

Harry Potter's birthday dawned bright and early, as days were wont to in July. The day began with Dudley watching the eggs while Tuney promised they'd go to Diagon Alley and pick out a present for Severus.

Vernon sniffed but said nothing. Severus thought that, if Dudley weren't so insistent on having things shared fairly between the two of them, his birthday presents would have all been more along the lines of a new set of second hand clothes or, well, a wardrobe for his room. Something functional, with a bow slapped on top.

Tuney had always been the kind of person who talked when nervous. "It said owl, cat or toad, perhaps—"

"No ruddy birds in this house!"

"—perhaps a toy, or a book, and then some ice cream to finish the day."

Their breakfast was interrupted by a great echoing slam, like someone was taking a battering ram to their front door.

Dudley, whom Severus was still trying to teach the art of self-preservation, raced off and yanked the door open, greeting the threat with a smile. _Oh God, the boy was going to go to Gryffindor, _he could picture it perfectly.

"Hullo. You're not Harry."

Severus groaned. _Hagrid had come for him after all._

Vernon retreated to the living room while Tuney tried to usher the giant out of her kitchen. Dudley was offering everyone tea.

There was a cake, lovingly iced and sat upon. Severus took it graciously and transferred it to the fridge. "We were on our way into London before you arrived, Mister Hagrid." Severus said, pocketing a piece of his far more palatable birthday brownie. "You might have sent a note before deciding to visit."

"None a' tha' Mister stuff—jus' Hagrid. And I'm 'ere ter take yer fer yer school shoppin'!"

"We have already _been _shopping, Mis…Hagrid."

"Oh." He made it stretch to two syllables.

_Yes, Hagrid. '_Oh'_. You might have sent my vault key in advance. Or, you know, with the Hogwarts letter._

"Well, then…"

"We could go again, together." Dudley beamed. "Pick out a present for Harry. We still haven't gotten an owl—"

"NO RUDDY BIRDS!" bellowed from the other room.

"Daa-aad," Dudley whined, and all of them understood the spoilt brat would be getting his way.

Tuney had meant to take the car into town that day, but now that they were being accompanied by a giant they were resigned to public transport.

Hagrid, unfortunately, had just enough magic in his umbrella to summon the Knight Bus. Tuney swallowed as she forked over almost ten pounds for a trip into London. Severus understood he would be getting a slightly cheaper present.

He wished bitterly that there was a legitimate reason for eleven-year-olds to speculate on the stock market—it would save his family a lot of penny-counting.

Hagrid boomed about _Important Hogwarts Business _and drew attention to Severus as they entered the Leaky, and thus Harry Potter, celebrity, made his reappearance in the Wizarding world.

Tuney scowled at everyone and everything, putting her arms around them both like a fluffed up chicken.

_Or perhaps a vulture_. That neck was entirely too long, preternaturally gifted to her by the god of neighbourhood gossip.

They followed as Hagrid lumbered into the bank, shouting about _Top-Secret Business._ And finally, finally Severus was given the key to Harry Potter's Gringotts vault.

"Perhaps you want to wait here, Aunt Tuney, Dudley? I read that the carts that go below ground are rather nauseating."

So Severus watched Hagrid retrieve the _You Know What _from vault _You Know Which_, so that _You Know Who _wouldn't steal it. Then he shovelled Galleons into the space-expanded messenger bag he'd enchanted himself.

Dudley had giggled and called it his man-purse. Severus had given him an exasperated look and slaughtered him in their next chess game.

Carrying more money than Severus used to earn in a year, he invited Dudley with him to get another set of robes, his treat. Winter ones, with a bit of embroidery on the edges of the cloaks. In case either of them ended up in Slytherin, it would be better to deviate from the uniform just a little.

They just managed to avoid meeting Draco as they left the shop again. _God, but the boy was tiny!_

Severus ignored the fact that he was also tiny and followed his group into the Magical Menagerie.

Somehow, Hagrid ended up buying him an owl. A great, white monstrosity that Dudley was cooing at.

_Harry Potter's owl._

It was entirely unsuited to the sending of covert messages. Because of the whole _great white monstrosity_ thing.

Hagrid beamed and wished them a good day. Tuney, the wonderful woman she was, steered them right back into the pet shop. "Dudders wants that owl. Choose something else for yourself, boy."

Severus had been raised by Eileen Snape. He was neither surprised, nor insulted. "I'd rather get a new bag. Dudley can have the owl." The smirk crept across his face before he could stop it. "Vernon will be pleased."

It turned out Dudley also wanted a new—everything.

"Ooh, do you have the kind of trunk that has, like, an apartment inside it? And a bottomless bookbag? Wand holsters with cool features like disarming the enemy?"

_Dudley, you're not even twelve. You don't have enemies._

The shopkeeper was looking at them and their muggle clothes with understandable disdain. "We sell school trunks, at half-weight and double-size. The locks are tamper proof. It's the Hogwarts standard."

Severus had already gotten them such trunks from the second hand shop. With a bit of tinkering, they'd go to quarter-weight and quadruple-size.

"But they don't have wheels," Dudley whined. "What kind of trunk doesn't have wheels?"

"We have trunks for the boys already," Tuney told the woman. "But Dudley is right about them needing bookbags."

"Right over here," she said, brightening. Her sign read _Frija _and her manner said _Not Fond of Children_.

"Same enchantments: half weight, twice the size. I don't know why you'd even want _bottomless_, boy."

Severus ended up buying them both new bags, and dragged Dudley away from where he was trying on forearm wand holsters. How the boy thought he'd fit fourteen inches on his eleven-year-old body was a mystery to them all. He got them simple wand-sleeves instead, attachable to the belt. Sensible, if perhaps going out of style.

After ice cream they were about to head home when Dudley dug in his heels. "Harry still needs a birthday present, mum."

Severus had been raised first by Eileen, then by Petunia, not to want things—it was easier than not getting things and being disappointed.

Severus did not want a familiar. He already had his supplies.

Dudley pulled on his sleeve, staring at a sign. _Archibald's Opticians._

_Yes, that would do perfectly. _Severus walked home the proud owner of _Special Spectacles_, which corrected his myopia, his astigmatism and had the added benefit of letting him see 'hidden things'.

… …

Suddenly I See

These new glasses were _brilliant._

Severus suspected he looked much like Dudley always did, suddenly able to see the magical eddies of the Privet Drive wards. The pixies in Mrs. Figg's roses. The disillusioned person by their dustbins.

_The disillusioned person by their dustbins?_

Wand clutched in his fist, Severus approached. He stayed safely on his side of the wards and donned his full glower, the one that had once made a Hufflepuff piss himself in terror.

"I can see you, you know." _If only he didn't sound quite so reedy._

The figure coughed. "I…I can see you, too?"

That voice. _Remus Lupin_. Severus checked the sky, but it was an hour until moonrise and a waxing crescent to boot.

"Hello. Can you make yourself visible, please, Mister Stranger?"

_What the fuck was Dudley doing here? Oh God what had he done to be saddled with a Gryffindor for a cousin? _Now that he wasn't going to be looking after Harry Potter, because, well, he was _in _Harry Potter, things should have been easier.

The werewolf materialised before them, looking as terrible as ever. Also, sorely in need of a bath.

"You look homeless," Dudley said. "What's your name, then?"

"Remus Lupin. I knew your parents, Harry. And, well, I…at the moment, I am…homeless."

"Hmm." Dudley thrust out his hand, moving to step beyond the wards. "Hello Mister Lupin. I'm Dudley Dursley. How do you do."

Severus yanked him back by the nape of his shirt, sending the boy tumbling to the grass.

"BOYS!" Tuney's voice screeched from inside. _Shit, shit, shit_, Severus was sure this looked terrible. He was going to be in so much trouble.

Remus Lupin, the fucking coward, fled with his tail between his legs as Tuney came to drag them into the house. "Bed, now, both of you! No supper. Never, in all my life—Oh, God, Dudders, my Dudders, are you alright?"

Severus exchanged a look with Dudley and they both ran, almost pushing each other over on the landing.

They somehow both ended up in Severus' room. A look out the window showed Lupin was long gone.

Severus slammed the window shut and turned on his cousin, who was leaning against the door sweating more than was reasonable considering the distance they'd run.

Except—Severus noticed, impressed—there was a faint notice-me-not sheen on his bedroom door now. Just enough not-quite-accidental magic for Tuney to forget about them for the rest of the evening.

"Oh no, no, no, stop that!"

"What?" Severus replied, but Dudley had already strode past him, picking his _ruddy bird_ off the shelf-of-broken-things. Sebastian the Bear lay there, now well and truly gutted.

The owl had a nice nest to show for it, though.

"Bad girl, Hedwig."

Severus stared.

Stared some more.

Sank down onto his bed.

"What did you call it?"

Dudley turned, blanching slightly. "Hedwig?" he squeaked. "I found it in _Hogwarts, a History_. I thought it was—pretty?"

Severus marvelled at the irony. Hedwig of Silesia, patron saint of orphans. Yet, Dudley was the one with the ruddy bird.

"It's an odd name to choose for a bird, Dudders."

"I like it. She feels like a Hedwig to me."

Severus wanted to let it go. He was just so, so tired of living, fighting, spying, thinking. He didn't want to have to go back to being so bloody suspicious all the time.

And yet, this was just too much of a coincidence for him to brush off.

"Look at me, Dudley," he said gently. "_Legilimens._"

… …


	4. The Men Who Died

The Men Who Died

"Was that _really_ necessary," Dudley hissed, clutching his head in pain. "God, I need an aspirin. You—_ugh._"

"Excuse me?" Severus' Legilimency had shown him nothing besides nauseating swirls of words and colours—it had revealed that Severus knew how to cast mind magic, though, and now Dudley was cursing for the first time in his life.

"You're not Harry Potter, then," Dudley plopped onto the bed beside him, massaging his head. "I thought as much."

"_Excuse me?_"

"Well, you can't be Harry. I'm Harry."

Severus stared at his cousin with extreme concern. "Maybe I should fetch Aunt Tuney," he hedged. Dudley had always been weird, and spacey—he'd never been delusional, though.

Begrudgingly, Severus admitted that he had grown to care for the brat.

"No, no, she's a muggle. She won't understand. Dumbledore might know, but I'm not sure I trust him really. He sent me to die—I remember dying. I'm guessing you died too." Dudley—_Harry_?—blinked at the wall, spilling his secrets like Skittles across the floor. "It's weird you call her Tuney. I always called her Aunt Petunia."

"You think you're Harry Potter," Severus clarified, just in case he'd missed something here. "You think you-as-Harry-Potter died and were reborn as Dudley Dursley. But you remember being…me."

"Well, not you. I mean, you're different from how I was. I tried to be a better cousin to you than Dudley was to me. Make us more of a…family. But, it's hard. There are lots of holes in my head. Like something was ripped out."

There was a cracked mirror on the inside of Dudley's cupboard door. It would show you yourself, reflected in a thousand pieces, all the tessellated fragments not fitting quite right.

Severus wanted to throw up. He'd grown up with the boy, how had he not noticed how wrong everything was?

He swallowed. "Who do you think I am, if not Harry?"

Dudley shrugged. "Dunno. Not someone very close to me, but not an enemy either. You don't act like an enemy would. You're kind of nice, in a weird way. Protective. It's—comforting. Like, I know I'm stuck here, but at least I'm not alone."

Severus was not comforted.

He did not know if he wanted to say it—speak his old name. Would Dudley-Harry hate him? He'd sent the boy to his death.

It was sadly plausible that magic, fate and God had sent both of them into this hell together. It was almost too easy to accept it. _Why_, he screamed internally, but it only echoed against the _Well, why not? _

Right. Because it was only normal, for everything to go wrong. He was Severus Snape, after all. _The man who could not catch a break._

"What happened, in your seventh year? You were still alive when I…died."

Dudley-Harry hummed, but there was calculation in tilt of his neck. "There was something we were looking for. Ron, Hermione and me. There were seven. The cup, the snake, the locket, the diadem. I remember what they are, but at the same time it's like someone poked my head full of holes. Like a colander, but without the pasta—I can't believe she sent us to bed without dinner."

Severus had never heard Dudley talk so much in one go. He hadn't realised Dudley could string so many ideas together at a time, really. He was just so…absent, all the time.

A mind like a colander. Suddenly, all that staring into space made so much more sense.

"Then he told me to come to him, surrender myself and he'd spare everyone else. Snape gave me his memories, explaining that I had to do it, because…I don't remember why, but it was a very convincing argument, considering he was dead at the time. So I went into the forest. My mum and dad were there, and Sirius. They said dying didn't hurt. They said it was just like falling asleep."

They sat there in silence for a good minute.

"They lied," Dudley whispered. "It hurt like…like—like dying, I suppose. And then I was here. On Dudley's second birthday, because all the shite always happens on Halloween. I don't know what happened to baby Dudley. I think, I think I…well, there's only one soul in this body now, and it isn't him. I hoped, at first, that he was put in you. But you're not like Dudley. You're older than me."

"Severus Snape," he found his lips whispering the words. His heart already clenched with the pending rejection.

Dudley-Harry just sighed. "Figures."

_What?_

"And," Harry-Dudley added, "I'm sorry about how you died, it was a rotten hand you were dealt. Being The-Boy-Who-Lived is rotten, too."

_Well._

_Well, that could have gone worse._

It could have been better. This had in no way been how he had expected their last week before Hogwarts to go—

But it could have been worse, so—

"So, yeah," Harry-Dudley sighed. "This is fucked up."

"That it is."

… …

Coming Home

Finally able to cast magic again, Severus threw up every privacy spell he could think of and sat down across from his…cousin. "What are we going to do about this, then?"

Harry-Dudley grinned, rubbing Tuney's lipstick from his cheek. "Who says _we _have to do anything? _You're_ our new _celebrity_." And he pulled off the tone so perfectly that Severus couldn't help his smile. He'd grown fond of the boy somehow. Entirely by accident, of course. Back then he'd thought the boy only his odd cousin Dudley—and now it was hard to regress to mutual loathing.

They were—both of them—too tired and too old for this shit.

"You were collecting the seven pieces of the Dark Lord's soul. Horcruxes, the greatest act of evil possible."

"Hor-crux-es," Harry-Dudley tasted the way the word rolled from his tongue. "Hmm."

Then he was staring intently out the window, watching for his old friends and whatnot.

Severus was used to his cousin's staring. With a sigh, he let the wards dissolve and buried himself in a potions text.

Harry-Dudley gathered a gaggle of Gryffindors-to-be into their compartment, but they left Severus alone for the most part. They shared their lunch, as Dudley was wont to sharing all things. Severus enjoyed Molly's corned beef sandwiches while the children gorged themselves on pumpkin pasties.

It came as no surprise when, after a few minutes' discussion with the hat, _Dursley, Dudley _went to Gryffindor.

_Potter, Harry _was greeted by ubiquitous annoying whispers.

Severus was ready for this. He had countless arguments marshalled in his mind, all the reasons how each of the houses might be useful. His wish to do the best job protecting people from the coming war. In Slytherin he'd be better able to spy, in Ravenclaw he'd be a safe neutral able to detract from his mental maturity. In Gryffindor he could better watch Hudley. The hat barely brushed his head when—

_HUFFLEPUFF!_ it roared, and the yellow table roared even louder.

Severus felt cheated somehow. _It hadn't even said hello, let alone listened_.

Harry-Dudley waved from his place beside Longbottom and Granger. Severus rolled his eyes at him for good measure, and made sure to block the place beside him from Zacharias Smith.

"Welcome, welcome to Hufflepuff," Diggory was saying as they sank into marshmallow-soft couches in the disgustingly comfortable common room. "You'll love it here. This is the best house to be in. Loyal, hard-working. We're great finders, too."

Severus _found_ his bed, which was unfortunately in a room shared with Finch-Fletchley and Smith. But the mattress was soft and the air smelled like Hogwarts in autumn.

It felt very much like home.

… …

Severus had never seen Harry-Dudley looking so happy. The boy was like a miniature sun radiating at his three Gryffindor compatriots as if they were actually his long lost friends—rather than eleven-year-old versions that he had only just met. Longbottom was terrified of everything and his own shadow. Granger was overbearing. Weasley was simple.

Harry-Dudley was glowing.

Severus returned to his morning cuppa, ignoring the way Bones and Abbot were chattering happily about the merits of a combined judiciary and legislative system. At half-eight in the morning. _Some people._

He smiled at Pomona when she passed him his schedule, though. The woman had been unfailingly kind, even when he'd been Severus Snape.

On the topic of Snape—his Professor-self was scowling down at him from the head table. Severus could see the perplexion in the tilt of his head. God, but he was so _young_. His every emotion was written across his face. _How embarrassing. _

Almost endearing, really. _The poor man_. Severus was going to be thoroughly violating the professor's expectations, and everything the man had ever believed. Severus let his lips twitch into a little smile and nodded his head to his Professor-self.

And then, in odd synchrony, they broke eye contact and returned to cradling their cups of tea.

… …


	5. The First Week Back at Hogwarts

The First Week Back at Hogwarts

This had to be a record. Not the Marauders, not the Weasley twins, not even _the actual Harry Potter _had managed to be summoned to the Headmaster's office in the first week of school.

Severus spoke the ludicrous farce of a password and spiralled up the stairs.

"Ah, yes, Fawkes seems to like you."

Severus hesitantly brushed his fingers over flame-coloured feathers. It was a pretty bird, but Severus preferred not to have other people's familiars sitting on his lap. It wasn't—appropriate.

"Would you like a Peppermint Humbug, my boy?"

"No, Professor Dumbledore, I would not like a Peppermint Humbug."

They chatted about inane things in Albus' usual roundabout way, until—

"Is there anything you want to tell me, Harry?" Dumbledore asked, peering over his half-moon spectacles.

_Yes._ Severus bit back all the words he did not want to say. _You used me, all your life. All my life, even. I died for your cause. Not _my cause_, mind, because all I had __wanted __was to protect Lily's son. But no, you made me forsake _my cause _and so Lily, her son, and you, and I all died in the end—and I'm not ready to forgive you for that._

"I worry about Dudley," he said instead. "He's always been a bit—different. The teachers at school said they thought he might have some condition. I'm concerned that he will run off and get into trouble." _And it'll be my fault for failing to watch him._

Harry-Dudley had learnt to dispel Severus' tracking charms within the first day. Even now, Severus didn't know where his…_cousin__?_—was, and the anxiety of it was humming incessantly in the back of his mind.

"Do you often find yourself worrying about things you cannot control, dear boy?"

Severus scowled at him, not caring how petulant he must look. "Is that all, Headmaster?"

… …

He popped by Gryffindor Tower on his way back to his common room, persuading some freckled child to let him in. Harry-Dudley was by the fire, holding court with Harry's friends' counterparts. Granger and Weasley were in the process of building a solid foundation for six years worth of unresolved sexual tension. Longbottom was upside down on an armchair, calling for his toad.

Severus was about to leave again, satisfied his charge was safe, but—

"Hullo!" Harry-Dudley called. "Come in, come over here!"

The common room paused to watch him before bursting into renewed noise, even louder than before. _Being a Hufflepuff had its advantages_, Severus couldn't help but think. _People did not regard Hufflepuffs with suspicion._ It was easier to sink into the background. Sometimes, if he made no noise, he could pretend he wasn't even there.

"Dudley," he greeted tonelessly, "Granger, Weasley. Longbottom, your toad is about to jump out the window."

"Hedwig's been a bit confused," Harry-Dudley said. "I got a letter for you, from Hagrid. We're invited to tea on Friday. Well, you're invited, but I thought we'd all go. It'll be nice."

_Nice. Yes. Exactly._

"Brilliant. I can't wait," Severus said, also tonelessly.

"Careful, Harry, or the Nargles'll get you," his cousin said, peering at a point by Severus' left ear.

He scowled back at Harry-Dudley. _Hudley_. Whatever. "I'm leaving now. Try not to kill yourself this week."

"Have fun in Potions tomorrow," Hudley called after him, almost mockingly.

… …

Severus watched his Professor-self prance about the room, his cloak draped _just so_ and his speech practised before a mirror.

_God, he had been so young_.

"Ah, Mister Potter," he watched himself sneer.

_He had been so angry._

"Our new…celebrity," he continued. "Tell me the difference between Monkshood and Wolfsbane."

_Actually, he had been bloody annoying._

"Debatable—they say there's power in naming things. But both plants are also known as Aconite," Severus answered. _As well you know._

His Professor-self sniffed and moved on, barking a question about Bezoars to Macmillan.

_You have no idea how lucky you are,_ Severus thought at his counterpart. _Things are going to get so, so much worse for you. And then you'll die. _

_Or maybe not._ Severus was planning on changing things, after all. Not too many things, not too early. But, hopefully, just enough to save lives.

In pairs, they began brewing their Swelling Solutions, the simplest four-step, four-ingredient potion in the book. Severus always marvelled how many people managed to get it wrong anyway, but it was a purposeful demonstration.

_This is useful_, it proclaimed. _This is dangerous_, it warned. _This is magic_, it exalted.

_This is lesson one of __a__-hundred-and-one-reasons-you-all-are-incompetent-dunderheads_, Severus added, watching Bones stop Abbott from setting her hair on fire.

God, he had no words for how glad he was to not have to worry about seven years worth of children with explosives anymore. He just had one child to watch now, and Hudley was practically an adult already.

_How bad could it be?_

… …

Draco was adorable, the way he preened over the sweets Narcissa sent him. Severus had already been caught staring once or twice, a fond smile on his lips.

Draco would smirk back in boastful delight, but every time he tried to approach Severus made a hasty exit. If nothing else, being a spy had taught him excellent situational awareness.

Which was, naturally, how he had ended up sandwiched between Granger and Hudley at Hagrid's kitchen table. Hudley would jabber enthusiastically for two sentences before trailing off into awkward silence. He had always been this way, ever since the boy had learnt to talk, so Severus was unbothered. Hudleys friends, too, seemed to have quickly become accustomed.

Hagrid was entirely out of his depth. The half-breed had no sense of tact and no understanding that the topic was closed when Hudley closed it, regardless of how everyone else felt about the matter.

Granger smoothly opened a discussion about some newspaper article while Hudley was picking only the broken rock cakes from the plate, meticulously stacking them even as his eyes roamed the ceiling.

"—tha's between Albus Dumbledore and Nic'las Fla—"

"Hagrid," Hudley interrupted, "Could I have one of those strands of Unicorn Hair? Please?"

_Oh, Albus_, Severus internally groaned, scrunching the _Prophet _clipping into a tight ball. _This isn't even subtle. Not guidance nor manipulation so much as yanking on a leash._

… …

"A break-in at Gringotts," Granger failed to whisper the intrigue. "Nicholas Fla-something. I'm sure I've read the name somewhere before. Oh, we _must _go to the library!"

Hudley continued to lead the way to the Hufflepuff common room.

_Ah_. To the kitchens.

"You're supposed to tickle the pear," Hudley announced loftily. "The Humdingers said."

Granger rolled her eyes even as Longbottom let them into the bustling room. They were promptly settled down with enough food for a small army—or four people plus Ronald Weasley.

Hudley was threading the now-braided Unicorn Hair into a macaroni necklace. "Like a colander," he explained matter-of-factly, tying the string loosely around Granger's neck.

Granger did not respond, still gaping at the House Elves.

"A colander, but with pasta. And it's not on an empty stomach this time." Hudley looked at Severus then, eyes piercing and present. "Why do I feel like this is important? Dangerous, somehow? A chess game at the gates of the Underworld?"

"I have already taken care of it," Severus assured him, uneasy. Was the boy's mind so thoroughly _riddled_?

"Alright," Hudley answered, slipping into an easy smile. "I trust you."

That night, Severus snuck to the third floor corridor on the right hand side, and scattered some detection charms. Because he'd promised, and…well. _Just in case_.

… …

Thank you for all your support so far. Remember, this is an interactive site. The power to keep a story alive (or to kill one) lies with the readers.


	6. Halloween

Halloween

"Happy Birthday, Dudley," Severus whispered, prodding the sleeping boy in the side.

Hudley actually shrieked, drawing his wand and the attention of everyone in the Gryffindor dorm. Severus tried to minimise the smirk on his face. Impotent sparks were fizzling from the stick of Hawthorn, approximately as threatening as a kitten.

Percy Weasley burst into the room wearing pyjamas, his glasses askew. "What's wrong, did someone yell?"

"Bugger off, Percy," Ronald said. "Harry just decided to develop a sense of humour. It came as a bit of a surprise."

Severus had snuck into the Gryffindor dorms before dawn for precisely this reason. And, well, perhaps a tiny bit was revenge for when Hudley's owl had woken him once. The day after Harry Potter's eleventh birthday, actually. Hedwig had been bearing the gift of a dead rat.

Severus had made a sound Hudley had insisted was a scream, which Hudley had proceeded to tease him about for a fortnight—until Lupin had shown up, and the reality of their situation had stilted their camaraderie.

Hudley was beaming at him now, eyes focused very nearly on Severus' face. Sparks were still sputtering from his wand, which he finally noticed and cut off with a shake. "Hey, thanks for waking me, let's go _exploring_!"

And so it was that two not-boys ended up pacing opposite a portrait of Barnabas the Barmy, an elf-packed breakfast in a convenient basket.

They both gaped at the room before them. It was cavernous, the ceilings high as a cathedral's. The dawn light poured unnaturally from what ought to have been northwest.

"I remember this room being important. There's something here that we need to find. I remember Crabbe casting _Fiendfyre_, and everything was lost."

Of course they could destroy everything again, and the Horcrux with it. But that would be the end of all the treasures in this room. _And, well, what was the point of time travel if not to prevent these tragedies of loss?_

Besides, there was bound to be something useful hidden in all this junk.

"Detection charms, Dudley. _Constant vigilance_."

Severus turned to his cousin, but the dunderhead was already gone.

Something crashed distantly. _Oh for fuck's sake._

Two moleskin pouches, five very nice quills, eight _very_ interesting-looking books, and a dragonhide jacket later, he found Hudley staring at a bust in a gilded cage that was balanced precariously on four tables and half a chair.

"And a partridge in a pear tree," Hudley's soft voice echoed oddly. "Right there, that's it. The crown. Except, well—what do we do with it?"

_Gryffindor's sword and basilisk venom_, Severus' mind provided helpfully. He cast a detection charm on the cage before gingerly picking it up. "We get it out of the school, for now. Put it in your Gringotts vault or something."

"I remember something about a dragon at Gringotts. It looked as miserable as I did when I was locked in my cupboard."

Severus could feel something _Dark _whispering to him, promising all the answers to everything he never wanted to know.

_Knowledge couldn't tempt him_. It was oblivion Severus yearned for more than anything.

He wrestled the ensemble into one of the moleskin pouches he'd found and called his Professor-self's Hogwarts elf.

"Young Master Potter," she squeaked. "You know my name. Master Potter is calling for Messy by name."

"Yes, Messy. Can you do something for me please? I need an item deposited in my Gringotts vault, and I know you know how to do that."

Messy nodded slowly. "Messy can."

Severus smiled wryly back. "I know Messy _can_. The question is, will you? It's important. It's a secret."

The elf eyed him. God, Severus had missed the thing—she was sharp as a tack.

"Missy will keep Master Potter's secret," she decided. "Unless directly asked. But the rules be the rules." The elf shrugged, then reached out a wrinkled hand for the pouch and Harry Potter's vault key.

… …

"I feel that was oddly anticlimactic," Hudley admitted as they walked from their first practical charms lesson.

"Your birthday, the adventure this morning, or the fact your wand has yet to produce any magic more interesting than wisps and sparks?"

Hudley scowled at him. "I know I'm doing the incantation right, I know how to cast the spell. It's not fair."

Severus actually laughed. "Dudley, did they fail to tell you? Life isn't fair."

"We're not going to the feast?" Hudley asked, as if it hadn't been obvious when they had branched off from the rest of the students minutes ago.

"Do you _want_ to attend the feast?"

"Not really, no."

Severus led the way to the fifth floor, then out a window onto the ramparts. Hudley was always calmer when at great heights, and this had been one of Severus' favourite spots as a student.

They clambered over slick tiles until they reached a sheltered nook behind a catlike gargoyle. Worn cushioning charms and discarded cigarette butts told stories of generations of students coming here when they needed to get away.

Severus pushed some of his magic into the gargoyle, letting Hogwarts animate the stone under his fingertips. It nuzzled his hair before butting playfully at Hudley's hands.

The boy could have lit up the entire world with that smile.

Harry Potter—Lily's son—was safe, and happy.

Huddled together under warming charms, they watched the sun go down. In that moment, Severus was content.

"There was something with a troll," Hudley hedged as it grew too dark to see. "Hermione was pulling a Myrtle instead of being at the feast."

_As if Severus had forgotten the troll._

So far his detection spells around the third floor had informed him of the comings and goings of one set of Weasley twins, a single seventh year Slytherin, and Hagrid and Pomona as they tended to their charges.

And, last night, Quirinus. The man would have to retrieve the troll soon, but not yet. There was time.

Severus wasn't ready for this moment to end. It was—almost enjoyable, actually.

"I have a charm watching Quirrell, we'll leave when it's time. Not that you'll be any good against a troll—your levitation spell today was terrible."

Hudley groaned. "Tell me about it. But this core is tiny, you know? And this wand—don't get me started on the wand."

Severus smirked. He'd had many a student come to him complaining about their Hawthorn wands over the years, wanting permission for another trip to Ollivander's.

"What would you say if I told you Draco felt very similar about his wand? It took them almost half a year to get along."

"You mean—" Hudley spluttered, "—all that posturing, and he couldn't even get his wand to work?"

Severus did not point out the irony. "Try talking with it. Explain your situation. I do not think it will understand, it's only a wand after all. But _you _might come to understand, and that's the point, isn't it?"

"Hey, Hawthorn and Dragonheart, fourteen inches, reasonably springy. My head is like a macaroni-and-cheese because of something I can't remember and don't understand. But I'm a wizard, and I'd like to do magic with you, so…"

"I didn't mean right now," Severus said, pushing to his feet. "Come, the troll is about to be set loose."

"Can I borrow the Holly, maybe?" Hudley asked when they were moving. "It's just—"

Severus passed it over without breaking his stride. Two wands against a troll were better than one, after all, and as his fingers closed around the Hawthorn he knew it would work for him just fine.

He flinched as Disillusionment slid down the nape of his neck. Behind him, Hudley's voice laughed gaily. "Just testing," he explained. "God, it feels good to hold her again."

Without the time to acknowledge how uncomfortable the exchange was making him, Severus led on. They could already smell the stench of ripe sewage.

"Do you have a plan?" Hudley asked then.

"Really, you wait until now to ask?" Severus wished his sneer were visible. "Stay back. I will—"

The troll lumbered towards them of its own accord, not roaring so much as grunting. Severus summoned the spare trunk he had stowed nearby, just for this moment.

He yanked Hudley out of the way as the trunk shattered at their feet. Dark mist whirled out, spun, and suddenly grew, and grew, and grew.

It looked like there were two trolls now. The new addition had the original one trembling. The ground shook as _Troll One_ thudded to its knees.

Then, sobbing.

Terrible, gut-wrenching, guttural sounds of pain.

The Boggart had seemed like a better idea when he hadn't been here, experiencing the full depth of the creature's suffering.

"This is awful," Hudley whispered. "Brilliant, but…terrible, too."

Severus wholeheartedly agreed.

Footsteps thundered in approach. _Good, the faculty was coming. _

It was not the faculty. It was three red-faced Gryffindors, panting heavily.

"Your cavalry has arrived, Dudders."

… …

When all was said and done Hufflepuff had gained ten points, while Gryffindor had lost a net twenty for not having the intelligence to _call for help_.

Severus anonymously sent the Cerberus antivenin he'd spent the past week brewing to his older self, to spare them all the pain of Professor Snape when he was in a bad mood.

"What did you do to the troll?" everyone kept badgering. Each time Severus would grin, shark-like, and reply "I'm a Hufflepuff. I _found _it."

… …


	7. Draco, ne me titilles!

Draco, ne me titilles!

Classes resumed. Homework was completed. Severus' charms kept watch over the third floor for him, while he not-so-surreptitiously kept watch over Hudley.

The boy was doing better in classes, his friends were doing a better job of being a cohesive group, and he had finally started performing magic. Also, Severus noted with pride, Hudley was doing very well in Potions, giving his adult self little to complain about.

"You spend a lot of time watching that cousin of yours," a familiar voice said. A hand was stuck in Severus vicinity, eager for shaking. "Malfoy. Draco Malfoy. If I didn't know better, I'd say you've been avoiding me."

"Harry Potter," he replied, wondering if he'd ever stop cringing at the name. _And yes, Draco, I have been avoiding you. It's a shame you've caught on. _Severus had to put down his breakfast cuppa so that they could shake hands.

"You're not how I expected you to be, Potter."

Severus took this as a compliment. _God forbid things be the way an eleven-year-old Draco expected them._

"Professor Snape says you're very good at Potions. He's my godfather, you know. I could arrange a meeting between you, if you like."

_Oh dear God. Oh dear God, Draco was trying to politick. Oh my fucking God._ Severus' lips twitched into a smile. "Thank you, Malfoy, but I don't think that's a good idea. Professor Snape doesn't like me much."

Draco's nose crinkled. "Yeah, you're probably right. My father says he's among the best potioneers in Britain, though. We're lucky he's teaching us."

Severus preened a little on the inside. "That we are."

They resumed Severus' previous activity of sipping tea and watching Hudley over at the Gryffindor table.

The vacant looks had been getting less frequent of late. _Perhaps, hopefully, there was something healing in that mess of a mind._

"He's muggleborn, your cousin, right?"

_Obviously._ Severus nodded.

"His theoretical work is very good. We have a lot of classes with the Gryffindors, and even when he's not paying attention he knows the answer. It's uncanny."

"Dudley's always been a bit of an odd duck."

"…Right."

It had taken Draco seventeen years to learn that it took a lot more muscle to _stay_ than to _go.*_

At age eleven, he was a master of leaving uncomfortable situations. Severus was not surprised to look up from his tea and find the boy gone.

… …

Severus awoke with a start. A _Tempus_ revealed it to be half-one in the morning.

It was his wards on Fluffy's door that had woken him.

Four _someones _passing through that door, actually.

Cursing under his breath, he shoved his feet into his shoes and his glasses onto his nose, barely remembering to cast a Disillusionment Charm as he raced up four flights of stairs.

He passed Peeves and Mrs. Norris near the charms corridor, found the door on the right hand side of the third floor unlocked—Hudley and co. were already gone.

Casting new, stronger locking charms, Severus followed the fastest route back to Gryffindor tower, arriving just in time to catch the portrait of The Fat Lady before it could swing shut.

"Dudley," Severus seethed, and all four Gryffindors received what was likely their third near heart-attack that night.

Then for a while none of them said anything, too busy with breathing. _Fuck_, but Severus was out of shape.

"Dudley," Severus tried again.

"Hi, you won't _believe_ what we found on the third floor."

"How did you even get in here?" Ronald asked.

"Who puts a Cerberus in a _school_ of all places," Neville moaned.

"Never mind all that," Hermione bubbled, "did you see the trap door it was standing on?"

Severus' glare silenced all of them.

"But," Hudley whined, "Draco challenged me to a _duel_."

God, they were such fucking _children_. "I will deal with Malfoy," he promised them. "I should have been expecting this, but for some reason I had convinced myself you weren't blithering _idiots_. Especially you, Dudley, should have known better."

They all hung their heads in shame.

Severus wanted very much to shake Hudley and scream, _You could have died! Do you have any idea how much a Cerberus bite hurts?"_

He recast his Disillusionment and swept out before he said something terrible, something he'd regret.

"Merlin, I can't believe _Harry Potter_'s worse than Snape, he is—" Ronald's voice reached him just as the portrait swung shut.

… …

Severus plopped down in front of Draco at the Slytherin table the next morning.

"Alright, Malfoy. You have my attention."

Goyle promptly saved the Malfoy heir from death-by-choking-on-toast.

They came to an understanding, after that—Draco would leave Severus and Hudley alone. In return, Severus would not release any number of little truths into the wrong ears. Ones about the Malfoys' drawing room floor, or the shelf of illegal books within Narcissa's ornamental porcelain cabinet. Details about Lucius' unusual love life. Or the most terrible threat of all: the knowledge that Draco had, until the year before, still sometimes slept in his parents' bed.

Hidden as they were behind muffling spells, Hogwarts only saw that Harry Potter sat down with Draco Malfoy at breakfast. And that, when the boy rejoined the Hufflepuffs table, Malfoy was white as a sheet.

That morning, they learned that Harry Potter should not be messed with, because he could out-Slytherin them all.

… …

* Paraphrased from Andrea Gibson's poem _Pole Dancer_: 'cause anyone who has ever sat in lotus for more than a few seconds knows it takes a hell of a lot more muscle to stay than to go.

… …

Christmas

While taking the Hogwarts Express to and from school at the start and end of the year was ritualistic, and useful for getting all the gossip out of the children's systems…well. Severus had never before had the luxury of wanting to return home for the Christmas holidays but, now that he did, he was noticing that this day-long train journey seemed _a momentous waste of time._

"I can't believe you agreed to come," Hudley was saying, splayed across an entire bench. "Merlin, this'll be so weird—not spending Christmas at Hogwarts."

Severus, in the process of completing his Transfiguration essay, did not answer.

"It's the first day off and you're wasting it on homework."

"On the contrary, this is the first day off and _you're _wasting it on a train ride, doing nothing."

"I'll just copy yours on the train back."

Unfortunately Granger chose this moment to reenter the compartment. "You will not," she gasped, actually _legitimately _affronted. "How will you learn if you don't do the work yourself?"

Hudley and Severus' combined stares had her cheeks pinking.

"Yes, Dudley," Severus sneered, "how will you ever learn the five rules and one exception to Gamp's law?"

Hudley rightfully rolled his eyes at that. All of the first year coursework was ridiculous, and some of it was even downright wrong. But, the curriculum was what it was. The two adults masquerading as children got by with the minimum effort necessary to prove they knew the material, and that was that.

… …

"I worry about Harry Potter," Minerva said, letting herself fall onto the couch beside Poppy. "He should have been a Gryffindor like his parents, so that I could keep a better eye on him."

"Perhaps," Poppy hedged, "you could let Pomona watch her Hufflepuffs, so that you can focus on everything else."

Minerva smiled. "That cousin of his, Dudley Dursley. He's quite something."

"And has the boy's magic started working for him yet?"

"I suppose, though he has yet to transfigure anything," Minerva said, her brow re-furrowing. "He has a different wand now. I am afraid he and Mister Potter—well. Nobody explained to them they couldn't switch wands."

"Oh dear."

"Quite. Hence, I worry."

"Do you think it makes a difference?" It was Albus' school, and watching the unfading lines of exhaustion in her partner, Poppy couldn't help feel a little cross. "Someone else can worry about him. Now, let me give you a back rub."

… …

"I worry about Harry Potter," Albus Dumbledore said, popping a liquorice into his mouth.

"Why must everything always be about Potter?" Severus Snape countered, dragging his hand over his face with perhaps more drama than was strictly necessary.

Albus ignored the token protest. "How is his schoolwork?"

"Impeccable," Severus replied, and it was evident the man was gritting his teeth. "Even his potions are—adequate."

"He has inherited Lily's talent, then."

Severus just scowled in reply.

… …

"I worry about Harry Potter," Quirinus Quirrell said, aloud, in a room empty but for himself.

"_Crucio_," a voice sounded, oddly sibilant over the sound of screaming.

… …

Vernon picked them up at King's Cross, on his way home from work. They could tell his day had been trying by the way the man cursed at everything, regardless of the impressionable young minds on the backseat of his car.

"Oi! He—he just cut me off! Arsehole!"

And so Hudley and Severus exchanged glances and listened as Vernon partook in his favourite hobby: complaining.

About motorists, gays, Harry, people at work, unnaturalness, Harry, the bank, cyclists, Harry…

By the time they reached home the man had run out of steam and was ready to gently kiss his wife hello.

His face reddened slightly when he saw Severus and Hudley dragging their bags into the house—Severus suspected that he had entirely forgotten they were there.

They had dinner in awkward enthusiasm, with Tuney desperately upholding conversation. Meanwhile Hudley was lost staring into the mistletoe again, Vernon was trying very, very hard to ignore any mention of the m-word, and Severus was just busy being astonished to learn that Hudley had been sending Tuney _letters_.

… …


	8. Four Nights, and One Day

Four Nights When They Talked, and One Day When They Didn't

"Hey," Hudley said softly, letting himself into Severus' room.

"You should be sleeping." Severus moved over nonetheless, patting the sheets beside him in invitation before his cousin weaponized those waif eyes on him. Hudley promptly made himself at home under his blanket, drawing a hissing breath from Severus. "Your feet are _freezing_."

"Yours are really nice and warm, thanks."

Severus didn't understand when this had happened, exactly, that he thought it was normal to be cuddling in bed with Harry Potter—as Harry Potter. He set aside the book he'd been reading to better run a hand through Hudley's soft hair.

"I couldn't sleep. It's weird, not having Ron's snoring."

"Fortunately, I do not share a dorm with Ronald."

Hudley _giggled_. "It's so funny how you call him Ronald. His ears turn red, every time."

Severus knew this. It was one of the reasons he insisted on doing so. "I have noticed you go out of your way not to call me by any name at all."

"Well, it's weird calling you Harry. _I'm_ Harry. Well—I was Harry. Now I'm…I don't know who I am. There's Harry-me, and there's Dudley-me, and then there's the piece of me that's…missing." Hudley snuggled himself tighter against Severus. "I can try calling you _Harry _more, if you like."

"I do not think of myself as _Harry Potter_." And he really didn't. Even ten years later hearing the name evoked a feeling of wrongness inside him. It varied between mild discomfort and an internal flinch.

"Should I call you _Professor_, then?" Hudley asked, eyes crinkling.

"Don't be ridiculous."

Severus continued stroking Hudley's golden hair long past when his cousin had fallen asleep beside him.

… …

Severus wasn't sure why they were still suffering through this, when Hudley's bed was much bigger. But their bodies were small enough to share his blanket, and the presence beside him was oddly comforting.

He suspected Tuney had caught on, because there was a very lumpy present under their Christmas tree which could easily be deduced to contain a new quilt.

"Your body is different from how my body was," Severus began that night's conversation.

"Besides the whole _being eleven_ thing, you mean?"

"Yes, Harry, besides that."

"Is my prick bigger, then?" Hudley asked, before smothering his giggles in the pillow.

The serious conversation Severus had meant to open about the oddities of their situation was postponed to another night.

… …

"Dudley's body is much bigger than mine. His hair responds to a hairbrush. He's much better with hugs and touching and stuff."

They were cuddled under Severus' new eiderdown, watching Hudley make shadow puppets against the ceiling.

"The Potter hair is nothing compared to what I had before." Severus admitted. His previous hair had been far too fine and had needed to be washed annoyingly often.

"Did you have friends, and you know…_stuff_, when you were a professor?"

_And stuff? What stuff?_ "Yes, Harry, I had friends. Minerva and Poppy hosted me for tea. Albus would play chess with me. Aurora flirted incessantly. Lucius and Narcissa invited me to join them in their—home. Horace and I exchanged a great many letters."

"Aurora _Sinistra_? She's, like, sixty!"

_Really, Hudley, that's what you take from this?_ "She never mean anything by it."

"So did you, you know…?"

_Not with Aurora, no. _"Did you, with anyone?"

"I…. No. At least I don't remember anything more than some very uncomfortable kisses."

_Very uncomfortable_ summarised this quite well, actually.

"This body seems to need more touch than my old one did," Severus said, thinking aloud. "My skin will start to itch. It was enough, when you and I were young enough to hold hands on the way to school and such, but now it's become—inconvenient."

The silence stretched so long Severus thought Hudley had fallen asleep again.

But then arms were wrapped around him, stifling and soothing at the same time. "You could have just said you wanted a hug."

"I will endeavour to remember that for next time."

The sensation was nicer than he'd expected. Wholesome, warm, and surprisingly unsmothering.

Severus could feel Hudley's shoulders sag, and then the boy clutched him tighter.

"This body's never going to be a seeker."

"I'm so sorry, Harry," Severus said, wishing Hudley's problems had solutions as simple as an embrace. "You didn't deserve this happening to you."

"You didn't deserve it either."

_Didn't he, though? _Was this not Severus' penance, for failing to save Lily's son? For winning the war, but losing the most important battle of them all?

… …

"I can remember most of first year now, and lots of second and third," Hudley began. "Most of fifth and sixth year is just impression, though. I can remember the stupid things like when the Weasley twins made a swamp, and when Moaning Myrtle shared a bath with me—I didn't _want _her to, she was just there. But I wish I knew why those Horcruxes were so important, or why the cloak Dumbledore sent you gives me the creeps."

"Do you remember where they are, the Horcruxes?"

"I remembered about the Diadem when we were on the seventh floor. I'm hoping I'll remember about all the other ones when we're close, too. What are Horcruxes again?"

"Dark Magic," Severus replied automatically. "The most evil kind. A piece of soul, stowed away to grant an insane form of immortality." He swallowed, wanting to hoard the truths, to protect Hudley's mind that had been cast back into innocence.

But Severus was not Albus Dumbledore. This was Harry's past, and Severus' future. He deserved to know.

"You were a Horcrux. That is why you went to the Dark Lord, to die."

"Making a human hold two souls seems really dumb. Are you're going to let _him _kill you, too?"

Severus didn't know, so he did not answer.

"I wish," Hudley finally whispered, "I wish I could forget seeing you bleed to death."

_Severus wished he could forget that one, too._

… …

On the Express back to Hogwarts, Severus let Hudley copy his homework under Granger's disapproving glare.

"You'll never guess what Harry got for Christmas," Hudley teased, blotting the last foot of his essay on Ethelred the Unready.

Severus rolled his eyes. Christmas Eve had been oddly comfortable, both _boys_ helping in the kitchen while Vernon had very lovingly—though with rather lacking taste—wrestled decorations onto the Christmas tree.

Presents had been stuffed under the tree and stomachs had been drowned in gravy.

Hudley had made them all hug under the mistletoe and proclaimed, '_This is brilliant'_. Severus had found he, albeit begrudgingly, agreed.

The next morning Petunia had thanked him awkwardly, fingers clutching the envelope of cash he'd gifted her labelled '_For Expenses_'. He'd thanked her, equally awkwardly, for the thoughtful gift of the duvet. Tight smiles had been exchanged, and everyone had pretended not to notice Severus sneak himself a shot from the next round of eggnog.

"Alright," Granger said, snapping her book shut. "I'll bite. What did Harry get for Christmas?"

"Blankets!" Hudley proclaimed, beaming. "One of them to keep him warm and the other to turn him invisible. Imagine all the trouble we could get into!"

"An invisibility cloak? Those are supposed to be really rare—and I'm sure there are rules against having them at school."

"We could break into the Restricted Section," Hudley said, smirking.

Granger huffed and returned to her book.

… …


	9. Here be Dragons

The Matter With the Norwegian Ridgeback

"So, Hagrid has a dragon egg," Hudley announced.

Severus had transfigured an armchair in the back of the library to fit the both of them, so that he could read in peace and Hudley could nap. _At least, he'd _thought _the boy was napping._

"Indeed. A dragon egg—what do you want me to do with this information?"

"He lives in a wooden hut."

_Ah. So Hagrid was going to hatch said egg_. Severus would have to let Albus know, so he could deal with his wayward groundskeeper's addiction to unsafe petkeeping.

"We're going to sneak the dragon to the top of the Astronomy Tower, at midnight, so that Charlie and his friends can pick her up," Hudley explained dreamily.

"We are _not_."

"Are _too_. It'll be an adventure."

… …

This was how Severus ended up climbing two hundred stairs under an invisibility cloak with _Ronald Weasley_ of all people. The garlic on the boy's breath was off-putting not only to vampires.

And of course his Professor-self met them at the base of the tower on the way back, when only Longbottom had had the sense to be wearing the stifling cloak.

Now Severus was listening to Argus describe his well-oiled thumbscrews. _Over fifteen years of friendship, and the man had never mentioned anything about his_…_preferences_. Severus might be a little put out.

He had known all about this detention though, because Draco had refused to stop talking about it for a month, after which Lucius had refused to stop mentioning it for a year.

The situation had been a simple mix-up. Three seventh-years had also been assigned detentions, and the roster had been misread. Hence Severus, Ronald and the Weasley twins were now on their way to the Forbidden Forest.

Severus was feeling decidedly out-gingered.

He volunteered to watch Ronald because he didn't want to have to worry about the twins, and so it happened that they were stuck, him and Ronald Weasley, traipsing through the Forbidden Forest looking for a unicorn. It was unlikely they'd find it anyway—the unicorns stayed much farther north.

Still, the silver blood in the moonlight was eerie at best, downright foreboding at worst.

Severus refused to waste a perfectly good full-moon excursion, and had brought a wicker basket. Weasley was begrudgingly carrying it while Severus flitted from one tree stump to the next, exclaiming about Rootmellow Mushrooms and Hickflowers and….

"How can you be this happy to be here?" Weasley groaned.

It was the boy's own fault—he should have brought himself a snack.

"This Moon-Mildew is in full bloom, Ronald. Do you know how hard it is to get proper Moon-Mildew?"

"Mum vanishes the mould over at our place."

"This isn't mould, Ronald. It's _Moon-Mildew_."

Suddenly Weasley dropped the basket, sending Severus' precious ingredients flying everywhere. A quick packing charm saved them, but really, _why had he been expecting anything from Weasley at all?_

Severus looked up, but the boy had stumbled back, scrambling behind a tree, wand fisted tightly in his hand. _Oh_.

Across the clearing, a unicorn was lying, bleeding to death.

There was a black cloaked figure huddled over it, slurping.

_Oh God._

"Ronald, I want you to get up and run and not look back," Severus whispered. "For God's sake, hold your wand the right way. There we go. Up you get. Now, run!"

The Gryffindor ran. The Hufflepuff set down his basket by a tree and, wand raised, approached. Severus was too busy _not freaking out_ to appreciate the irony.

The beast—for drinking unicorn blood rendered one inhuman—had drunk its fill. Straightening, it turned its hooded blackness to face him.

There was silvery blood dripping from its shadowed maw. It moved oddly, like all its limbs had been attached backwards.

_Harry Potter survived this age eleven. Harry Potter survived this age eleven. Harry Potter survived this age eleven._

"Harry Potter," it rasped.

_Age eleven. _

_Now, as a full grown wizard, he should be fine_. If only the scent of the Shrieking Shack's musty floorboards would stop filling his senses, and it might feel a little less like his lifeblood were draining sticky and wrong from his neck—

A centaur soared across the clearing, hooves barely audible over the thudding of Severus' heart.

There was a scuffle and the beast fled upwards, flying despite the sore lack of broom.

The centaur turned and said to Severus, "You should not be here."

"Yes, thank you, pass me my basket please Firenze," Severus replied. He began chanting over the unicorn, pouring his eleven-year-old core into healing spells.

The beast nickered weakly but ate the Bloodmoss Severus fed it anyway.

Together with the centaur, Severus stood back and watched it struggle to its feet to stumble off into the undergrowth.

Only then did Severus look around the clearing properly, flecked with moonlit blood.

Despite being over fifty years old, the sight of such innocence, slaughtered—it filled him with gut-wrenching horror.

"Magic has blessed you," Firenze announced, while Severus tried not to collapse.

"_Point me_," he incanted, his basket clutched in a trembling hand. He headed southwest.

"Mars is bright tonight."

"Mars can go fuck itself," Severus spat, stumbling over a root. At least his tracking charm on Ronald Weasley informed him the boy was in the same direction as Hogwarts.

The centaur and the boy walked back to the castle in silence after that.

… …

_If Severus had been Draco Malfoy, he would have had his father complain, too._

… …


	10. Severus, Potter & the Philosophers Stone

Severus, Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

"My friends are totally convinced Professor Snape is going to steal the Philosopher's Stone," Hudley announced one day after Charms class.

Severus somehow was entirely unsurprised. _His other self was disastrously good at appearing villainous_.

"Could you convince them I'm taking care of it? Being the boy-hero, and so on?"

"I don't think you're playing that role very well. But yeah, I'll talk to them."

After dinner, Severus returned to the third floor to add another, more extensive set of detection spells.

On the way back to the basement he passed an old classroom, so unused even the elves had neglected to clean it.

There was a neat compulsion hooked on the door, which had been left temptingly ajar. Wand raised and eyes rolling, Severus followed it in.

_Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi_

_God, Albus, do you take me for a fool?_

Severus turned on his heel and left, casting several locking charms behind him for good measure. _No wonder Harry Potter had always been stumbling head-over-heels into trouble. _

Severus was glad he had decided not to trust his old mentor with the truth of his and Hudley's situation. _Not if this was the way Albus valued decades of spying all for the sake of keeping Lily's son safe._

Borrowing the invisibility cloak when the Potters were in hiding, when they might have used it to escape.  
Letting a child of eleven play on a Quidditch team.  
Sending Harry off on a silly little adventure to save a Stone that was perfectly safe already.  
Telling the boy it was his prophecy-forsaken destiny to hunt down the Dark Lord's soul.  
Making Severus lead him to the brink, then give Lily's son that last push—

_Severus was done playing Albus' games by Albus' rules._

… …

They were reaching the end of the year when the compulsion hit him. Well, it didn't hit him—it was more of a gentle tickling of his subconscious.

_The Stone is in danger, Snape is going to steal it! I have to protect the Stone!_

Severus snorted, making unfortunate acquaintance with the sensation of tea dribbling out his nose.

"Alright there Harry?" Diggory asked, slapping him on the back instead of casting _Anapnea_ like any sane person would.

"F-fine," Severus wheezed back, drawing Hudley's wand to cast the spell himself. "I'm fine. Excuse me," he said, and made a hasty retreat from the Great Hall.

… …

The next compulsion was more subtle, making itself known as he was studying in the library. _The Stone is fascinating_, Severus caught himself thinking. Not for the first time that week, he was picturing it sitting there, ripe for the taking. _So many experiments I could run!_

He scowled, striking that sentence from his History of Magic notes.

And, begrudgingly, he assigned Albus points for a reasonable argument this time.

But the whole thing was pointless, because the Stone was safe without any input from Severus whatsoever. As long as left well enough alone, Dumbledore's trap for Quirrelord would spring shut perfectly.

… …

_Dudley is going to go after the Stone, I have to keep Dudley safe!_

The spark of insight came mid-Transfiguration exam, and Severus almost believed it. Except…he hadn't thought of Hudley by that name in almost a year.

Nevertheless, he abandoned his essay when he saw Hudley get up to leave, and made sure to inform him that the third floor corridor on the right hand side was _not_ to be ventured into, upon possible pain of death.

Hudley nodded vaguely and proceeded to drag him outside to enjoy the May sunshine.

… …

That night, Severus' wards warned him that Quirrelord was making another attempt to steal an artefact that had a track record for staying out of the wrong hands for almost six hundred years running.

With an extra warming charm on his feet and the Potter cloak over his shoulders, Severus very sensibly owled off the letter he'd prepared for this eventuality. Then he walked past Fluffy, levitated over the plant—

He doubled back for a clipping._ Devil's Snare was a valuable ingredient and difficult to obtain._

The winged key was susceptible to a variation of the summoning charm.

The chess pieces did not respond to him, invisible as he was. The troll was unconscious.

He had brought his own Flame-Resistance potion, of course.

Then he stood quietly at the back of the final chamber and watched Quirrell pace before the mirror, muttering to himself and growing ever more frantic.

Severus wished he could say he was surprised when his alert ward informed him that _the usual suspects_ were approaching. Hopefully Albus' obstacle course would slow the four of them down, even if it wasn't much of a challenge.

_This situation did not need a hero._

… …

Severus yanked Hudley under the cloak as soon as he stepped through the flames. The boy had remembered to Disillusion himself, at least, and Severus had only spotted him because he'd been expecting to.

They waited behind layers of invisibility and silencing spells for Albus to collect the wayward Dark Lord.

"It seemed like a good idea at the time?" Hudley hedged.

Severus just glared at him.

"My friends were going to go without me?"

"Are you honestly expecting me to believe you were outwitted by three children who barely have enough magic between them to fill a thimble?"

"I—yes?"

"You'll be the death of me, yet."

Hudley laughed at that, high-pitched and rather reminiscent of a sob.

Severus clutched him tight to his chest and said nothing.

… …

"What you did was a wonderful, brave thing, Harry, Dudley," Dumbledore praised once they rejoined the visible spectrum. The Defense Professor was lying on the floor like a forgotten prop, having spewed a dark, screaming mass several minutes before.

Severus cast a simple diagnostic, but the man was already dead. _Had this happened in Harry's original first year? Had the Headmaster compelled him to go watch a man die?_

"He is beyond any of our help," Albus said with a put-upon air of great wisdom.

_Yes, Albus. He's _dead.

"It is the living who deserve our pity, my boy, not the dead."

That was among the stupidest things Severus had ever heard, including seventeen years worth of student essays.

Severus wasn't sure what was visible in his expression, but it was enough to make Albus stop talking and let them go to the Hospital Wing.

… …

"This is the first time I haven't been the best in my class," Granger groused on the Express back to Muggle London. "Except in Potions. How could you possibly fail the Potions exam, Harry?"

Hudley laughed. "You failed Potions? What, out of protest?"

Actually, Severus had tried to brew a Draught of Peace from the provided ingredients, instead of the instructed Water Essence. He'd had to improvise because of the missing Hellebore petals, but he knew the Draught would have been usable. His Professor-self knew it too, but he had assigned the Water Essence, so Severus had gotten a _Troll_ for not following instructions.

_They both knew it was out of spite._

"I thought the assignment was dull," Severus answered Hudley's question. "I have nothing to prove in the subject."

Hudley snorted, but let it drop in favour of exchanging telephone numbers with Granger.

Meanwhile, Severus let Neville help him check on the Devil's Snare cultivar nesting in a Tupperware box in Severus' trunk.

… …

Thank you for so many lovely reviews. I've been having a rough time of late, and—well. Never underestimate the power of a kind word to a quasi-stranger.

… …


	11. The Matter of the Elf

The Matter of the Elf

They began the summer with a trip to Knockturn Alley, because Petunia had set them the chore of gardening, and Severus was interpreting this as permission to plant whatever he wanted as long as it looked nice.

"Mum's going to kill us," Hudley was prattling, "Fanged Geraniums, God! Can you picture Aunt Marge's Bulldog whiddling on those?"

Severus had always known there was a sadistic little prick in Hudley, but it was nice to finally have proof. "Mrs. Figg's cats, too. Snowflake always looks at me like—"

"Well, what have we here?" came a silky drawl.

Severus would recognise that voice anywhere. After all, he'd heard it across the entire spectrum, from anger, to pride, to ecstasy.

_Being eleven was inconvenient sometimes._

Hudley opened his mouth, but Severus was already jamming his elbow hard into the boy's ribs.

"Hello, Lord Malfoy," Severus greeted. "Fancy seeing you here. I didn't know you shopped in such places."

"I could say the same to you, Mister Potter. And your cousin Mister Dursley, I believe? My son has told me much about you."

Severus let a small smirk cross his lips and said nothing. He knew Lucius. _Lucious Luce_, Narcissa called him behind closed doors. His hair was shining brighter than anything else in the dingy Alley.

"It's been nice meeting you, but we really must go now," Hudley said, pulling Severus back to the present. Looking back over his shoulder, Severus could see Lucius staring back at him, face showing nothing more than polite curiosity.

"I don't think he's a good man," Hudley whispered once they were back Muggleside, queuing for the bus.

Severus found himself wishing in that moment, with everything he had, to be Lucius' friend again. "I'm not a good man either," he admitted.

"Aren't you?" Hudley replied, squashing the both of them onto a window seat. "I guess I'm a terrible judge of character, then."

… …

"There's something effervescing in the corner of your room," Hudley said.

Severus found himself inordinately proud, because if Slughorn had been the boy's Potions Professor then Hudley'd most likely would have just called it _fizzing_.

"You have great deductive powers," he replied, though his face had already betrayed him by smiling. "It is a variation of the Mandrake Restorative I am testing."

"I'm not sleeping in a room with _that_."

Severus did not bother pointing out that this was _his_ room. He just stripped his blankets off the bed and followed Hudley over to his cousin's larger one.

… …

"Do you ever think we should tell Dumbledore?" Hudley asked, once again nestled against Severus' body.

"In the beginning I considered it, when everything was still very…raw. Then I realised that my information was relatively useless: _The Dark Lord will return?_ Albus knows that. _The prophecy? _He never told me all of it anyway. And _Sirius Black?_ He's a murderer, but not much of a danger to anyone but himself." Severus took a deep breath. "The things I can help with, such as ensuring a supply of Mandrake Restorative is on hand, I can do without informing Albus. He's not my minder."

"Sirius Black? He's our godfather, right? I remember he was nice to me."

Severus could not even imagine the disaster that would result from himself being placed under the guardianship of Black.

"I much prefer Tuney. And it's known that your godfather killed twelve Muggles, Harry. There's nothing we can do to help him until he breaks out of Azkaban next year."

"Ron sleeps with Scabbers on his pillow, did you know? It gives me the creeps."

"Your friend's poor animal hygiene has nothing to do with me," Severus protested, because these were things he really did not want to know.

_A full grown man, sleeping on a boy's pillow._

Hudley nudged Severus' hand in protest—he'd inadvertently stopped stroking his cousin's hair.

_These were things he really did not want to think about, at all._

… …

Vernon had been puffed up about the dinner all week, going so far as to create a schedule and colour-coded diagrams.

_This was the night, now, the one they'd all been waiting for_, and so they were being subjected to a final motivational speech. "Dudley, none of that staring off into space nonsense. Boy, none of your…unnaturalness. Petunia, dear, that smells wonderful—"

The doorbell rang. Severus ducked into the kitchen, content with his task of tending to dinner rather than the dubious honour of wearing a rented suit for the entertainment of these Muggles.

Everything was going fine, until the House Elf cracked in.

"Dobby!" Severus hissed.

He could hear Tuney making some excuse to check on things in the kitchen.

She barely muffled her shriek at the sight of the mad Elf levitating her painstakingly decorated pudding.

Severus hadn't been a Slytherin for nothing. He talked his way out of the situation and got the Elf to promise to do the Dursley household's laundry for the coming year, too.

Tuney almost looked impressed.

… …

"Would you care to inform me why an Elf appeared during dinner, telling me _very bad things _were going to occur, and that _Harry Potter must not go to Hogwarts_?" Severus asked that night as they tucked themselves, exhausted but satisfied, into Hudley's bed.

"Oh, Dobby's still alive! Brilliant."

In all their time together Lucius had not once mentioned that his House Elf knew Harry Potter. In fact, Severus remembered the family getting a new Elf mid '93, though Dobby's absence was never explained.

Somehow, Severus was beginning to suspect Harry'd had something to do with it.

"I am not sure what is so _brilliant _about me having to make a pinky promise to an Elf."

"What?" Hudley said in genuine alarm. "But, you _have _to go to Hogwarts. What will I do without you to watch over me? I wouldn't know what to do with eight kinds of Mandrake Potion, either."

"Harry, where exactly are you ranking the pinky promise, on a spectrum from _'I might'_ to _'Unbreakable Vow'_?"

The look of realisation blooming across Hudley's face was worth having had to manipulate a barmy House Elf.

… …

Broken Things with Frayed Edges

Severus was waiting out an experimental potion's simmering stage while Hudley sat on a corner of Severus' bed—the rest had been re-purposed as space for yet more of Hudley's collection of broken things.

"What are you hoping to accomplish with those, anyway?" Severus tried asking for what felt like the hundredth time.

"I keep thinking, if I find their missing pieces and make them whole, I might find my missing pieces too," Hudley said easily. He was tugging at his right ear. "Do we have any radishes? Or I don't suppose you planted a Dirigible Plum?"

Severus decided the potion wasn't the most important thing that needed tending to right now. He turned off the flame.

"What would it take to fix this one, then?" Severus offered, sitting down on the bed and picking out a chipped vase at random.

Hudley's smile was sweet and just as cracked. "I think I have a splinter of a marble in my room that could fit."

"Go and fetch it then, and let's see what we can do."

The result looked like a bad patch sewn over a broken heart.

But it grounded Hudley in the present, and that was worth everything.

… …


	12. Sixty Days of Summer

Sixty days of Summer

Severus ambled after Hudley and Hermione as they flitted between shops, participating in the Muggle sport of window shopping.

Except that Hermione's version involved books, stationary and decorative paraphernalia rather than clothing. _Really, was the Granger household so sorely lacking in chintz? _

By the time they stopped for food, Severus was badly in need of an opportunity to sit down, and even Hudley's vacant smile was looking rather forced.

"Why do you indulge her? This is numbing." Severus groused.

"Hmm?" Hudley's eyes focused surprisingly quickly. "Oh, let her have her fun. She deserves a chance to be a child."

"Yes, but why does she have to do that with _you_?"

"She's my friend—or she will be when she grows up more. I owe her this much."

Severus said nothing. _After everything he and Harry had sacrificed to the cause in their last go at things, he didn't think they owed anyone anything._

_Least of all this tedious shopping excursion._

… …

"How many apothecaries _can there be_ in one magical district?" Hudley moaned. "We're supposed to meet mum at three, and we still need to pick up our robes."

"This is the last," Severus promised. Because he _knew_ Gwendolyn kept a store of diamond dust in the back. The trick would be in getting her to sell it to him for a fair price.

…

"You know what?" Hudley commented on their way back to the Leaky.

"No, I do not know, because you have yet to tell me."

"I want a broom."

Severus almost bumped into a witch and her dawdling spawn. "Would you repeat that?"

"I want a broom."

_There went the hope that he'd misheard_. "Brooms are very expensive, and you already said you are unable to play Seeker."

"It's _my_ savings vault. And I can still join the team as reserve. I was thinking I'd like to try for Keeper."

A quick mental calculation showed Hudley wouldn't be playing until Wood left in their fifth year. _Good_. And a part of Severus approved, really._ Keeper—guarding against the trouble, rather than chasing after it._

Still, it would make more sense to buy a broom after the Firebolt came out, then they could get this year's model for less money.

"Next year," Severus said with what he _thought_ was finality.

"Pleee-ease?"

This was Draco all over again. Severus was long practised in the art of ignoring whinging.

"Is that…Dad? Mum? Hello! I didn't know you were both coming."

"Dudders, my boy!" Vernon almost shouted. His face was approaching puce, and half of his attention was directed at the Hags sitting at the Leaky Cauldron's bar.

_How had they even gotten in?_

"Did you finish your shopping, love?" Petunia asked, a calming hand on Vernon's arm—it was unclear who was calming whom.

"Yeah, all done. I was just saying how I want to join my House Quidditch team," Hudley said, eyes crinkling.

"Kiddich Team?" Vernon asked, watching someone arrive by floo and apparently too stunned to move.

"Quid-ditch," Hudley repeated helpfully. "It's a popular sport, like rugby."

"My Dudders wants to play on the school sports team?" Vernon put his beefy hands on his son's shoulders, finally giving him his attention.

"Well, I…" Hudley seemed a little overwhelmed with it. "…But I don't have a broom."

"Why would you need a ruddy broom? Is it like polo, then?" Vernon straightened, already pushing them back towards the Alley. "Come, son, let's get you a broom. Anything for my boy." He turned to Tuney then, eyes watering with his smile. "Can you believe it, Petal? Our Dudders wants to play a sport!"

If not for Hudley's entirely-too-bewildered expression, Severus would have put this down to an exceptionally successful manipulation.

As it was, though, Hudley spent the ride home and the entire week to follow explaining everything there was to know about Quidditch to his father, from mechanics to statistics to league games.

Severus shot Hudley a look that said, _rather you than me_, and went to check on his Devil's Snare in the garage.

… …

Many Happy Returns

"I feel like I'm forgetting something," Hudley said as they pushed their luggage carts through King's Cross Station.

They'd had to say goodbye in the car after spending twenty minutes failing to find a place to park, and Severus could tell his cousin was a little put out.

"If it's important it will make itself evident and you will remember it," Severus tried to reassure. _In moments like these he wished he were better at being reassuring._ They could worry about it later though—right now, they barely had five minutes to make the train.

"Ah," Hudley said the second _after_ they crashed into the barrier, trolley falling onto its side, wheels spinning abjectly. "I remember now! Ron and I had to take his dad's flying car."

… …

They did not end up taking Mister Weasley's car.

Thirty minutes later, having caught the Piccadilly bus and flooed from the Leaky Cauldron, they were sitting in the noon sunshine drinking Rosmerta's Butterbeer.

"I can't believe I never thought of this," Hudley said.

Severus _could_ believe it, actually. _The problem with wizards was the profound lack of logical thought. Taking them from the Muggle world at eleven had its consequences._

Then he laughed, because someone was approaching from the direction of Hogwarts castle, and Severus recognised his favourite travelling cloak.

"Try not to antagonise him, Harry," Severus warned, and let the _Muffliato_ around them fall.

… …

While Hudley was dismissed to loiter around Gryffindor tower, Severus did not have it so easy.

He followed his Professor-self past the familiar door to his classroom, his office, his rooms until—Severus couldn't help smiling as he walked into his old laboratory with the centrifuge whirring in the corner.

Tortoiseshell Grower, Burn Paste, the experimental limb-regrowing potion he'd been struggling with and, in a final slow-simmering cauldron—Haemorrhoid Healer.

Severus broke into a full-blown grin at the sight of the last. _There were advantages to being in Harry Potter's body._

His Professor-self scowled, whirling with practised drama to confront him. "If you were looking to spin a believable tale of why you missed the Express, a mad House Elf should have been your last resort."

_Had he always been so angry?_ "Yes, sir. My apologies. I thought you would prefer the truth." He met the man's eyes with gentle provocation, but he knew himself too well. While Albus dipped into every mind he could, Severus only did so when it was truly necessary.

"I tested your Draught of Peace on Hagrid's dog. It slept for a week."

"The boarhound or the bigger one?"

The Professors' face blanched. _Ah, so Albus hadn't informed him about all the children who had been traipsing through that little obstacle course._

"The boarhound Fang," the man replied curtly.

Severus just nodded. He didn't like when people insisted on filling silences with unnecessary words.

"You may take a look around this room. Do _not_ touch anything."

"Thank you, Professor," Severus said.

This laboratory had been his pride and joy for over twenty years—ever since Slughorn had lent him and Lily the room to experiment in.

Severus stroked the place by the door where they'd carved their initials in a childish fit of territorial vandalism.

"What did I _just_ say?" his Professor-self hissed, but Severus knew how to disarm him with a simple smile.

"It's brilliant, sir. Thank you for letting me see."

"Go find your cousin, Mister Potter, before he gets himself stuck in a toilet seat."

Severus felt himself blanching and took off at a near-run.

Because in '96, Graham Montague had gotten stuck in a Vanishing Cabinet before Apparating himself into a toilet. The Slytherin chaser had taken half a year to recover and had never gotten over his claustrophobia.

None of the teachers had been able to find the Cabinet until Malfoy had used it to let the Death Eaters into the castle a year later.

_Severus had to find and fix the gaping hole in Hogwarts' security._

… …

"Dudders, the Vanishing Cabinet, what do you know about the Vanishing Cabinet?" Severus asked once he was done with panting.

"It's in Borgin and Burke's," Hudley answered easily enough. "…Though I don't know how I know that."

"The one in Hogwarts, do you know where it is?" Severus repeated, because _this was important_. "Focus, Harry. Try to remember for me."

Hudley shrugged and stared into the unlit fire.

Groaning, Severus got up and made to leave. He lit the fire though, so that his cousin might at least have something to watch.

… …

"Hello…" Dirty blonde hair with vacant blue eyes sat down across from him at breakfast. "I'm Luna Lovegood, but you can call me Loony."

She had said this to his left ear.

"They call me Harry Potter. You may call me either name, or you can leave and not address me at all."

Severus had been up all night hunting for the Cabinet, and this tea wasn't half as strong as it needed to be.

"You have the look of someone who's looking for something," Lovegood continued, still to his ear.

_Great. First Hudley, now Lovegood._

"And do the Nargles have anything to contribute?" he sighed.

The girl brightened impossibly. "You know about the Nargles?" She turned to Bones beside her. "Do you know about them, too?"

"Err—" said Bones.

Severus took this moment for his escape.

… …


	13. Enemies of the Heir, Beware

Enemies of the Heir, Beware

Dobby showed up mid-Potions class, about to add Fire Salamander eggs to Smith's Deflating Draught.

Old instincts took over. Severus had vanished the potion and was in the middle of giving Dobby the dressing down of his life when—

He noticed the classroom had gone exceptionally quiet.

"Thank you, Mister Potter," he heard his Professor-self's voice drawl from right behind him. Severus did not flinch. "Follow me. Everyone else, return to your brewing. Elf! Come."

It was a hard call who was dragging his feet more, Severus or the Elf.

His Professor-self sat heavily behind his desk, raising wards with a flick of his wand. "Dobby," he began, and Severus could hear his tiredness. "I will have to tell Lucius about your intentions to put an entire class into the Hospital Wing—" they watched bat-like ears droop low, "—_unless_ you promise me you will not interfere with Harry Potter's life against his wishes ever again. _Do you understand_."

It wasn't a question. Dobby nodded anyway, hard, before cracking away.

"Mister Potter, have you ever considered teaching?"

Severus' grimace answered for him.

His Professor-self sighed. "Yes, that was my reaction as well. Consider yourself to have detention every Thursday after dinner, in my Potions laboratory. You may bring whatever you are working on now—do not look so surprised, I know you have your own projects going. You are twelve however, and should be supervised in your experiments."

Severus laughed at the irony. "Thank you, sir. And if I may, you should try your limb-regrower on an Albedo concoction base rather than the Rubidium one you're currently using."

He left, then, before his Professor-self could make the leap from puzzled to angry.

_God, he had been so young._

… …

It was Hudley's birthday, and Severus was again disinclined to visit the Halloween feast. They skipped the day's classes too, busy rifling through the Room of Lost Things._ This was becoming something of a tradition._

When the sun went down they went to Myrtle's toilet, only to find the Chamber had already been opened, enemies well-warned.

"Ginny told me she missed him, sometimes. Having him always with her. Riddle left a mark on her soul, too."

"I have checked all of Ginevra's possessions, thrice. She does not have a diary." Severus took down the petrified cat and vanished the water. "Hold her," he said, passing Mrs Norris to Hudley. The letters in cock-blood were easily wiped away with Magical Mess Remover.

They fled from the stampede of approaching feet. Nobody ever needed to find out about the spectacle that had almost happened here.

"It's nice, being able to fix things," Hudley said, stroking the newly revived cat. "Do you think the Elves will have dinner for us?"

That night Severus let Hudley sleep in his bed instead of making the trek to Gryffindor tower.

"This might be the nicest Halloween ever," Hudley had said, tucked under Severus' arm. "Thank you."

"Go to sleep, Harry," he'd whispered back. _What else could he say?_

… …

Mismatched Rhymes

"Mister Potter," Minerva called, holding him back after class. "A word, please."

Severus sat across from her, helping himself to the tin of biscuits with a smile that was perhaps a little fonder than it should be.

"I knew your parents, did you know?" Minerva said, but nonetheless poured them tea with an air of business. "They were in my House."

"I am aware, Professor, thank you. People keep telling me." Severus was always distinctly uncomfortable when forced to listen to stories about Lily and James Potter, as if they had been heroes, or saints.

_Anything but the teenagers muddling through a war that they had all been._

Minerva sighed, and Severus felt a pang of guilt. "Very well. I wanted to talk with you about your cousin Dudley, actually. You seem to be very close."

"What's he done _now_?" Severus asked, though he suppressed his groan.

He could picture Minerva in the Dursley's living room, pursing her lips at the sheer Muggleness while Petunia pursed her lips at the witch sipping on her tea.

"Were you aware he has yet to transfigure anything in my classes, Mister Potter?"

"I was sure he got an _Outstanding_ in his exam," Severus protested halfheartedly. Minerva would not lie about this.

"Perhaps you should give him back his wand?"

_Oh_. Severus fingered the Hawthorn and Dragonheart, familiar in his hand. "Yes, I will do that." He took another gingersnap for good measure, unwilling to let himself cut this conversation short.

"When I talked to Mister Dursley about his lack of Transfiguration prowess, he explained to me that he did not want to change things too much, for fear of not being able to recognise them afterwards. I have noticed he also seems prone to bouts of…absence."

"He's always been like that," Severus lied._ Harry had been just fine, back before the Dark Lord had shot an _Avada Kedavra_ at the boy's head._ "I will talk with him."

They sat in silence for another minute.

"Your father was a natural at Transfiguration, Mister Potter. I am warmed that his talent has been passed on to you."

Severus didn't want to hear one of his favourite colleagues exalting about his childhood bully. "Excuse me, Professor. If there's nothing else…?"

He took a handful of biscuits for the way to Gryffindor Tower. _God, this castle had far too many stairs._

… …

"Minerva is worried about your lack of transfigurations," he told his cousin, hiding behind silencing charms and the boy's four-poster's drapes. Hudley had stuck shelves everywhere, housing his ever-growing collection of broken things.

"It's not that I don't know how," Hudley protested, butting his head into Severus' hand until he began stroking the boy's soft hair.

"And yet?".

"Well, it's all visualisation and intent, but, what if I don't _want_ the needle to be a matchstick? Or the porcupine to be a pincushion? Maybe…maybe I think the porcupine should just be itself."

"It's a class that teaches a magical skill, not symbolism," Severus protested without any real conviction.

"Some things could maybe just stay as they are, and shouldn't go changing into others. I don't want to force an existence on a snuffbox."

It made an odd sort of sense, and he could see Hudley's growing distress. _God, Severus would rather not have been forced to be something he wasn't, either_. "Alright, no transfiguring things. Minerva will survive." Severus pulled something at random from a shelf—a Remembrall that was inexplicably flashing turquoise. He cast a diagnostic on it, revealing a stunted matrix of runes.

Hudley had sat up, completely focused and evidently fascinated.

"Alright, Harry, how's your enchanting?" Severus asked.

"Nonexistent," Hudley whispered, breath misting up the glowing glass. "Let's go to the library."

_It was five minutes to curfew._

They went to the library, and the next morning there was a great deal of grinning, despite deep bags under their eyes.

The repaired Remembrall sat in Severus' pocket, swirling a faint orange.

… …

AN: Parts of this were inspired by _Path of Decision_ by lulu42 at /s/4438449


	14. Remembering the Future 15 Years Past

Remembering the Future from Fifteen Years Ago

The entire school was at Lockhart's duelling club, leaving Severus to pace the Gryffindor common room with Hudley as his only audience.

"I still haven't found that Cabinet," he complained. "How can one Vanishing Cabinet be so difficult to locate?"

"Maybe it's vanished," Hudley offered, staring out the window. "Or you could ask Dobby?"

"We asked the Hogwarts Elves. They couldn't locate it either back then."

_Yet, Dobby wasn't a Hogwarts Elf. Perhaps there had been some enchantment hiding the cabinet from them? Vanishing Cabinets were tricky things, after all._

"Dobby," Severus snapped, and promptly sent the Elf on its mission.

"Do you think we could do something about Lockhart?" Hudley asked then. "An unfortunate accident with a beaver, or…dunno. Anything, really."

Severus pictured pushing the man into the lake, the man's multitude of clothes becoming waterlogged and dragging him down into the realm of Merpeople, Grindylows and the Giant Squid.

"Perhaps," he conceded. "I hadn't realised how truly awful his classes were."

The first time Lockhart had tried to swing his arm around his shoulder, Severus had almost cursed it off. Instead, in an act of malicious irony, he had _accidentally_ vanished all the bones in said arm.

Lockhart hadn't met his eyes since, even ignoring Severus' lack of attendance of Defence classes.

"Wasn't there another yellow-eye attack sometime around now?" Hudley asked, making Severus renew his pacing.

_Yes, there had been many petrifications in their original timeline._ But for the life of him Severus couldn't recall who, when, or where. "Do _you _remember every detail of 1992?" he asked desperately.

"No, but I don't remember lots of things."

"Do you remember what we had for dinner yesterday?"

"No, but like I _just_ said, I don't—"

"I was only teasing."

"I remember something was going on with the Hufflepuffs," Hudley offered. "They were scared of me because I saved Justin from being bitten by a cobra."

Severus also remembered something similar, _and hadn't there been a ghost involved?_ Mandrake Restorative as an aerosol had been incredibly challenging to create.

But, on the topic of cobras—

"About that," Severus hedged, "When exactly did you realise you could talk to snakes? Is there something in particular you do to speak Parseltongue?"

"Yeah, you have to look at a snake or imagine one, and then say _Activate Parseltongue_."

"Activate Parseltongue," Severus tried, feeling very, very stupid.

Hudley laughed. A long, drawn out, deep huffing kind of laugh.

"My abs hurt," the brat said when he'd finished his final round of chuckles.

"That implies you have any," Severus growled back.

He was beginning to realise he wasn't, in fact, a Parselmouth.

Which meant he likely wasn't a Horcrux.

Which meant he didn't have to die—_that was a positive development._

It also meant things were different, which meant Severus couldn't predict what would happen, which meant he couldn't control things, which meant—

"Hey, hey, deep breaths Harry."

Severus realised he wasn't in control of his breathing any more, and hence failed to comply.

"Err. Think of your happy place. Flying. Or, Potions for you, I guess. Listen to my voice. Or tune me out and do your Occlumency thing—I don't actually know, Severus, you're freaking me out. _You're _supposed to be the put-together one."

Severus' voice squeaked a laugh at that. _Which was ironic, because he had also just realised he wasn't half as in control as he'd thought._

"That's it, Severus. Whatever you're doing, keep doing that. Deep breaths. Maybe, I dunno, lie down or something? God—where's Hermione when you need her?"

_It felt so good, hearing his real name again._ Like a tightness which he hadn't realised was there, suddenly unclenching in his chest. It was just enough for him to wrestle control again and unravel the other tightness, brought upon by the realisation _he wasn't Harry Potter_.

"Oh good. Let's not do that again, alright?"

Severus noticed his head was in Hudley's lap, and that the boy was stroking his hair. Drained, he closed his eyes and let him.

… …

They returned from their fourth midnight enchanting mission, a newly-functioning automated nutcracker in hand. Severus wasn't sure what he was supposed to do with said nutcracker, but Hudley was only interested in collecting these things as long as they were broken.

"You'll have to make peace with your wand at some point, Harry," Severus said, wishing he had led up to the topic somehow instead of springing it on Hudley's good mood like a cold shower.

But he had to do this now, when Hudley was focused and happy, because he'd been waiting for _The Right Time_ for a long time now, and it just wasn't going to happen by itself.

"Do you think we'll find _my _missing piece, ever?" Hudley asked instead of answering. "Or the right rune matrix _to fix me_?"

Severus' heart twisted in on itself, crushing the breath out of him. "The Dark Lord killed it, Harry," he said, his voice drowning with sorry. "A piece of him spent almost seventeen years growing through your mind, and when it was gone—well, it left empty spaces behind."

"I'm Riddled with holes," Hudley said, and then he laughed, not-quite-there.

"I don't think it's fixable, Harry," Severus said softly, carding a hand through golden hair. "You just need to make new memories until everything's…patched over. You've gotten better over time. You were almost never _with us_ when you were very little."

Severus wished, for the thousandth time, that he had a knack for being comforting. He wished for Aurora's ability to soothe sobbing children, and for Pomona with her hot chocolate and her ability to convince them that everything would be alright.

"Come on, Harry," he said, taking his cousin's hand and leading them back down from Gryffindor Tower.

When he woke Pomona at two in the morning she smiled tiredly and said nothing, merely bustling them before a crackling fireplace and pushing mugs into their hands. She wrapped an arm around Hudley, and then pulled Severus under the other in the most motherly hug he had received in both his lives.

His eyes teared from the dry air by the fire, but it was alright.

_Somehow, everything was going to be alright._

… …

The next day, Finch-Fletchly and Sir Nicholas were admitted to the infirmary, leaving everyone entirely baffled.

Severus handed his Professor-self some of the Mandrake Restorative, prompting raised eyebrows and a look that could almost be construed as approval.

That night the Hufflepuff common room was filled with whispers of a hissing monster with brilliant yellow eyes.

Severus renewed his monitoring spells around Myrtle's bathroom sink and kept looking for someone with a small black book, but found nothing.

… …

There were no more attacks, and nobody ever mentioned the Chamber of Secrets. When they packed their bags for Christmas break, Severus found his Devil's Snare had almost outgrown the space under his bed, and decided to gift half to Neville.

And the day after the Express took them back to Privet Drive, Severus snuck out in the middle of the night, into Lockhart's over-decorated flat. Severus stunned the man, who was in his best party robes and sadly wandless, then brought him back to Hogwarts' Greenhouse Four where the Venomous Tentacula lived.

Filled with Christmas cheer, Severus left.

… …

Christmas Eve at the Dursleys was livelier that year, with Vernon enlisting Dudley to help him decorate. The large man was satisfied with a hint of magic in the addition of Drooble's Dripless Candles. Tuney's gingerbread was perfect, and Severus got to have his way with the composition of the goose's stuffing.

They sat down under an armful of mistletoe adorning the dining table's pendant light, and all of them were glad when Hudley barely glanced at it, too busy being _with them_.

It was heart-wrenchingly happy. Severus found himself not missing Lucius and Narcissa's pompous dinners, nor the way Albus would always force lemon tarts upon him. Nor Poppy and Minerva's increasingly obviously smitten looks as their cheeks reddened with wine. Not even Hagrid's terrible singing.

Petunia let Severus have his glass of eggnog with dessert, though she held her own son to stricter standards.

_Severus wouldn't have had it any other way._

The next morning all four of them fell upon the tree with adult childishness.

Hudley got Quidditch paraphernalia, and Tuney received a repaired enchanted bread-maker. Vernon proudly set the surprisingly beautiful cracked antler aside, wrapped as it was in copper wire and glittering with glass dust.

Severus suspected it was going to be adorning the man's office soon, accompanied by boasts of _My son made this for me_ and _He plays for his school sports team, have I told you?_

Severus unwrapped his pruning shears with dignity, smiling at the implied permission to continue having his way with the Dursleys' garden.

That night, in the privacy of Hudley's room, Dobby and Hudley presented Severus with a pair of Vanishing Cabinets.

Hudley hugged his own copy of _One Thousand Alternatives to Reparo_ to his chest, only putting it down to change into his pyjamas.

And then as they tucked themselves into bed, Hudley accepted his own wand back, smiling faintly at the happy sparks sputtering from the Hawthorn. "Thank you for choosing me," he whispered.

_Perhaps, things weren't so lost after all_.

… …


	15. Patronus-worthy

Patronus-worthy

Nothing much happened for the rest of the school year.

Hudley kept up a steady stream of broken things they would repair. Severus brewed under his Professor-self's begrudging approval. Hudley trained as reserve Keeper, amazing everyone with his hitherto unseen ability for intense focus. The Chamber of Secrets remained closed and, best of all—

Lockhart was announced to have mysteriously resigned, replaced by an auror on injury leave. They taught auror-training rather than the curriculum, but that suited Severus just fine.

The most exciting thing that happened was an outbreak of acne, in places he had been unaware acne was even possible.

Severus had been Potions master at a school for twenty years. There was a lot of Bubotuber pus involved, and that was that.

It was amazing how few responsibilities children had, in the grand scheme of things. Even when the weight of stopping the Dark Lord loomed—

It was the most peace Severus had had in a long time.

After exams he packed his belongings, bubbling with excitement that things were going to start happening again.

… …

"Marge is visiting," Tuney announced on their first night back, not even waiting for them to finish enjoying dessert.

Severus' gut twisted with anxious anticipation. "What have you told her? About our school?"

Vernon flushed a concerning shade of beet. "You, boy, attend Stonewall High. And Dudley is at Smeltings."

Severus couldn't help the way his brows rose into his fringe. "How long are you expecting that lie to hold, then?"

"Don't ask questions, boy," Tuney snapped.

Hudley was grimacing. "It's only a week, right? We can hold out for a week."

"That's the spirit," Vernon said, patting Hudley on the back. "Don't worry yourself, lad, she'll be far too busy drinking our sherry."

They spent the week preceding Marge's arrival cleaning the house and garden from top to bottom.

By which Severus meant, he spent day one admiring the length of the list of chores Tuney had written on the back of a receipt—it stretched over three feet.

Then he'd borrowed Hudley's _very conspicuous owl_ and sent Lucius a letter requesting a meeting.

… …

"I was surprised to receive your correspondence, Mister Potter," Lucius said as they took their seats at his favourite restaurant on Sophistic Alley.

Severus had decided to make a power play of the evening, reserving a table and ordering all their dishes and beverages in advance.

Lucius raised an elegant brow at his tea-cured salmon and tipped his glass to Severus.

"I was hoping we could come to an agreement over your house elf, Dobby," Severus said, finally slipping from political small talk into the actual purpose of this thirty Galleon meal.

"Oh," Lucius said, patting remnants of spiced pigeon from acheingly familiar lips. "And what would that entail?"

"I'm looking to acquire a house elf," Severus replied simply, before turning the conversation back to the latest cauldron-bottom regulations as their Sambocade cheesecake arrived.

Lucius did not comment until after Severus paid and they returned, cane tapping alongside them, into the June sun.

"Two hundred Galleons," he finally opened the negotiations.

Severus politely reminded Lucius that the elf was mad, and ended up feeling rather smug when he eventually paid barely more than the price of their overindulgent meal.

It was odd, having an account full of family money to spend. And it felt wrong, spending a week's wages on very fancy food and overpriced wine. But society expected it—and more importantly, Lucius had _not _expected it.

A pang had gone through Severus every time the man had laughed, unaccustomed to his old friend being so guarded around him.

They registered the transaction of Dobby at Gringotts and walked to Fortescue's in a comfortable silence, both of them smirking at the sight that greeted them: Draco and Hudley had ended up at a table together, bickering.

They picked up their charges and went their separate ways. Once back home Severus summoned Dobby, endured a modicum of happy weeping, and handed over Tuney's list of chores.

… …

Marge's visit was as awful and stilted as they all had been anticipating. Hudley had his cheeks pinched far too often. Severus raised his brows at the dog biscuits he was gifted. Tuney kept up a very polite smile, and Vernon was so stiff it was a marvel he could move at all.

The four of them had stood by the kitchen window grinning, watching the first and only time the bulldog urinated on the Biting Begonias.

All of them breathed a sigh of deep relief when Marge's taxi drove her away.

Severus was impressed there had been no accidental magic outbreaks but, going by the vacant look in Hudley's eyes, the harpy had done enough damage as it was.

"Chin up, my boy," Vernon said, wrapping Hudley in a clapping hug. "Tell me how your Gryffin Kiddeech team is doing. And _the boy's_ birthday is coming up, maybe we can get some tickets for a League game."

Hudley's eyes didn't focus, but he did brighten and start jabbering about the Chudley Cannons.

Severus sent Dobby off to make arrangements for a _Falmouth Falcons_ game, and a Muggle-repelling-charm-resistor each for Vernon and Tuney.

That night Severus saw a mangy black dog curled up under the garden hedge, just where the wards ended, and went to set out the box of dog treats.

The next day, both were gone.

… …

The summer passed in a blur of potions, shopping, fixing things, potions, gardening, fixing things, potions—

And suddenly it was September first and Severus found himself participating in some very last-minute packing.

They enjoyed the lunch Tuney had given them for the train ride, though judging by the minor extension charms on the Tupperware, Dobby had helped with the preparations. It astonished Severus and Hudley, how well Tuney and the mad Elf got along, but who were they to judge?

Then, an hour too early, the train came to a shuddering halt.

Severus did not know _how_ he'd managed to forget about the Dementors, but he had.

The feeling of drowning was overwhelming—Severus cursed his childish weakness. It was with distinct unhappiness that he acknowledged he owed Lupin for the salvation the werewolf's Patronus had brought.

That night Severus and Hudley missed the Sorting, sharing a chocolate soufflé and an infirmary bed. Neville slept fitfully one bed to their right, and Lovegood dreamed on to their left.

Severus remembered, though, how he had gotten only five Slytherins that year—ambition and cunning had not been forefront in anybody's minds after _that_.

… …

The next day, instead of History class, Hudley and his friends met with Severus in an adjacent classroom to practice the Patronus Charm.

"Focus on feeling happy," Hudley was explaining. "Maybe a happy memory, or a happy idea, or just the way it feels when it swells in your chest—like everything's going to be okay, somehow."

Then the boy closed his eyes, brow furrowing, and whispered the magic words.

The largest bat Severus had ever seen burst forth—it flapped around the room and hung itself from the ceiling, all the while projecting a grouchy indulgence.

The children were watching it in awe, but it was Hudley's startled, happy laugh that got to him. Severus cast his own, letting the hind trot about, ears twitching. It shone twice as bright as Hudley's, but that was to be expected—Severus' core was far bigger.

He let Neville pat his Patronus, enjoying the awe sparkling in the boy's eyes. "Something that makes you feel happy," Severus reminded. "Oh, go on—you can't fail until you try. Wand up. Expecto Patronum."

The Gryffindors had marginal success and skived off the next History lesson with some more friends. Who told the Hufflepuffs, who told the Ravenclaws, who told the Slytherins.

Which was how, over two months, Severus ended up teaching the entirety of Hogwarts how to cast the Patronus Charm.

Albus hovered in the background of some classes, invisible but to Severus' enchanted glasses.

His Professor-self stopped by once too, scowling furiously at the hind Patronus that had also been Lily's, and was now one of the most frequent Patronus animals, really.

Frogs and otters and cats and sheep and bears and leopards and a rather fantastic peacock prowled the halls at all times, casting a genuine cheer that drowned out the looming, sucking darkness.

"That was good of you, Mister Potter," Minerva praised him, and Severus preened a little. "Your mother was always good at Charms, but to cast a corporeal Patronus at such a young age! Astonishing."

"Everyone can do it now," Severus protested—on the inside he was still preening.

"Yes. They can. Truly astonishing."

"Children are much better at being happy, Professor."

Her lips pursed. "You're a good lad, Mister Potter. Run along now. And have fifty points for your house."

Hufflepuff threw a party for him, a _themed_ party with cauldron cakes and a huge vat of hot chocolate by the fire.

They even thought to invite Hudley, who spent the night happily chatting with Diggory.

Severus might have been able to cast the brightest Patronus of them all, right then.

… …

I will finish posting this fic regardless, but my writing and sharing of future fics/sequels does depend on feedback because I'm a human motivated by human things. You're 'just' a reader, but this is an interactive site. Thank you to everyone who has reviewed, and especially my regular reviewers.


	16. Worst Fears

Worst Fears

Severus had heard about the Boggart lesson from Neville, who was trembling about how he'd accidentally cross-dressed Severus' Professor-self. The boy had wanted to be comforted—reassured that Professor Snape wouldn't kill him, that the Dowager Longbottom wouldn't kill him.

Severus had said _there are worse things than dying_, and Neville had trembled even harder as he'd left.

If he wanted _comforting_, he really should go to someone else. Though in all actuality, Severus had thought it was hilarious. When he'd found out he'd been furious, of course—Lupin ought to have been infinitely more professional about the whole thing.

But in retrospect, it was a funny image. If Severus had been his own worst fear, he'd have laughed at himself wearing a vulture hat, too.

_A carrion eater perching on a Death Eater.*_

"I have something special prepared for the lot of you," Lupin said, but nobody was fooled. Hogwarts was known for the speed of its gossip, and they weren't looking forward to this.

"It takes the shape of the thing you fear most," Smith said with far less pomp than usual.

They practiced chanting _Ridikulus_ and Severus wondered why it wasn't Dementors, Werewolves, the Dark Lord, or death he feared most.

No, he knew exactly what form the Boggart would take, and Severus wasn't a Gryffindor. He hung back, scowling, trying to picture how a corpse might be made to look funny.

Lupin dismissed the class of hysterical Ravenpuffs early, once everybody but Severus had gotten their turn facing their worst fear.

"Would you like to have a go?" Lupin asked gently.

"Not particularly." But he stepped forward anyway, wand raised. _Ridikulus, Ridikulus,_ he chanted mentally.

_Ridiculous_, his mind replied with uncalled-for snark.

Then Hudley was there, lying on the floor, blood gushing from twin holes in his neck. "Look...at...me," the Boggart gasped, and Severus looked and wished it were at least properly dead—but not even that kindness was shown him.

"_Ridikulus_," Severus whispered, turning the almost-corpse into a bad caricature of a Muggle zombie.

"Braaaains—Look…at…me," Hudley said, those eyes suddenly turned Lily-green.

"_Ridikulus_," Severus tried again, but nothing happened. There was nothing funny about it, at all.

"You were supposed to protect him," Tuney's voice said, echoing in his head.

Then Lupin stepped forward and _Ridikulused_ his moon back into the trunk.

They stood in silence.

Severus realised, by faculty of his blocked nose, that he was crying.

"Is the transformation so terrible, that your worst fear is a part of yourself?" he asked Lupin, wanting to cut, to hurt, anything but face that sinking feeling in his gut that he had failed, that Harry was dead, that this was—all of it—pointless.

"I—what? How do you—I don't know what you're talking about," Lupin sputtered weakly.

"You're a werewolf. You were friends with my parents. What's it like, turning into a dangerous beast once a month?" Severus didn't have much energy to put behind the words, but he knew exactly the words to choose.

Lupin collapsed into a convenient chair. "I'm—y…. It's—terrible. Losing control. Becoming a monster. I…your Boggart, do you…do you want to talk about it, Harry?"

_Not particularly. _"I'm not going to let it happen," he said instead. "He's not going to die."

"I rather hope so, Harry. You're only children."

_As if there weren't infinite dangers._

Hudley could trip and fall down a staircase.  
Get kissed by a Dementor.  
Accidentally walk off a roof.  
Provoke some mad Defense professor and get cursed.  
Fall off his broom.  
Confront the Dark Lord.  
Get eaten by Hagrid's little brother.  
Trip into some Devil's Snare.  
Get run over by a Muggle bus.  
Have Sirius Black murder him in a fit of insanity.  
Stumble into a room where the werewolf lay in wait.

_How could Severus possibly protect him from everything?_

"I need to go," Severus said, and ran all the way to Gryffindor tower. He found Hudley playing chess with Ronald, and the knot inside him dissolved, slowly, slowly.

He found he could breathe again.

"What was yours, then?" Hudley asked once he'd finished his game, leaving Ronald to sulk with his battered pieces.

"You, dying," Severus said frankly. He also placed a new slew of tracking charms on Hudley.

The boy wrapped himself around Severus like a limpet. "I don't want to die again," Hudley murmured into his robes.

"I won't let you," Severus reassured. "What was yours?"

"McGonagall told me there had obviously been a mistake, and snapped my wand, and sent me packing."

Severus hugged his limpet back just as tightly. "You're a wizard, Harry," he whispered into soft sandy hair. "Nobody can take that from you."

They stood there like that until a Weasley twin wolf-whistled.

Severus sent a _Levicorpus_ at him on reflex, then left before anyone could convince him to tell them the counter.

… …

* The vulture on a Death Eater is from BlueMaple's _West of the Moon, East of the Sun_ over on AO3

… …

The Many Uses of Aggressive Vegetation

As usual, Sirius Black ruined everything.

He appeared in the Gryffindor dorms in the middle of the night, bearing a large blade.

Severus had been in the process of sneaking into Hudley's dorm to uphold their tradition of waking each other in the most uncomfortable ways on their birthdays. Hudley's dorm-mates knew of this by now, which was why they all had silencing charms up.

It was also the reason Severus was the only witness to the truly _spectacular_ scream Black made when he tripped over Neville's Devil's Snare.

Which, really, was an approportionate reaction. The plant, lovingly named Rupert, was very gentle for its species. It lived under Neville's bed during the day, and explored the dormroom floor at night. The boys all knew to light their wands for midnight trips to the bathroom, and that was that.

Trevor was perched on a wriggling vine, watching.

Black, writhing on the floor, gave a raspy croak.

Prefect Percy Weasley burst into the room, wand aloft and scowling. "Harry, Dudley, it's four in the morning, this isn't…funny…."

Percy blinked and adjusted his glasses. "Is that Sirius Black?"

"Possibly?" Severus hedged. "If you'll give us a moment, Percival—"

"MERLIN'S BALLS IT'S SIRIUS BLACK! SIRIUS BLACK IN THE BOYS' DORMITORY!"

… …

Minerva came and calmed everyone down with the brusque efficiency Severus had always admired her for.

Sirius Black was petrified and bound, though he'd just been muttering madly and hadn't at all seemed concerned about fleeing.

Prefect Percy was given a Calming Draught.

A certain rat could not be located, likely detracted by the announcement of _SIRIUS BLACK IN THE BOYS' DORMITORY_.

Neville was told, under no uncertain terms, to better contain Rupert—_as if the plant hadn't done them all a great favour._

Severus slipped away to manage his own Devil's Snare, lest he receive a similar reprimand. He left Hudley sitting in front of Black, staring intently at one of the man's ears—the boy seemed to be in no danger.

Minerva called Albus, who called Severus' Professor-self, who sent Severus to fetch the Veritaserum, who then also retrieved Lupin out of a sense of professional courtesy.

Three drops, and they gathered around with bated breath to watch how one truth could upset everything they'd believed.

Peter Pettigrew had been the Potters' secret keeper.

Black had gone after Pettigrew that night, cornered him on a Muggle street, aimed a _Bombarda_ and—tragically—missed.

Twelve Muggles had died, and the only trace of Pettigrew had been a finger.

And then, a photograph of a rat in the paper, perched on a Weasley shoulder.

A mission.

"Some bloke broke me out of Azkaban," Black said, and all of them gasped. "He said that, as his right-hand man, I should have the honour of helping the Dark Lord rise to be greater than ever before." Even through the Veritaserum, they could hear him scoff. "Bloody ponce actually thought I was a Death Eater, and—get this—he thought _he_ was You-Know-Who. Once I figured out he was _batshit_, I snuck out while he was sleeping. Well, and I stole his wand."

"You didn't break out of Azkaban yourself?" Severus asked. Because Black had told the story of his pathetic heroism, escaping via near-drowning, at least a dozen times _back then_.

There was another round of gasps—it appeared the adults had all forgotten he was in the room at all.

Severus was ushered out and had the dubious honour of telling Hudley and his friends what he'd heard.

"Just how bad is the security in Azkaban anyway, if people can waltz in and out as they like?" Hudley had asked, and Severus wholeheartedly agreed.

… …

Sirius Black finally got a Wizengamot hearing and was sentenced to twelve years in Azkaban, one for every Muggle.

Seeing as he'd been coerced into breaking out by someone whom he believed to have been the Dark Lord, they pardoned him for that.

Nobody asked about the time he'd almost killed Severus when they were children. Nobody asked if anybody besides Pettigrew had become an illegal animagus.

Then they docked time off the sentence _for good behaviour_, stuffed Sirius Black full of nutritive potions, and let him loose on Wizarding Britain.

… …


	17. The Unfortunate Existence of S Black

The Unfortunate Existence of Sirius Black

The letters started in December.

_Dear Harry, I'm your Godfather who abandoned you to chase my petty revenge, please love me?_

_Dear Harry, I'm entirely unsuitable as a guardian and you're obviously content with the Dursleys, come live with me?_

_Dear Harry, The first time you saw me I was breaking into a room of sleeping children while manically wielding a knife, why don't you write?_

_Dear Harry, Meet with me in Hogsmeade, we can reminisce about the good old days where James, Remus and I bullied your Potions professor, how about it?_

_Dear Harry—_

Severus set that one on fire, prompting a good-natured chuckle from Diggory.

"If you don't want him to write, Harry, maybe you should actually _tell_ Black that?"

"That would only encourage him," Severus protested. Besides, it'd involve penning the words, _Dear Sirius,_ and honestly, he'd rather get hit with an Entrail-Expelling Curse.

Up at the head table, he saw his Professor-self smirking. Severus raised his teacup in a mocking toast.

_It was nice, having someone who perfectly understood his sense of humour._

… …

Christmas at the Dursleys had gotten impossibly better now that Dobby was involved. The entire house was scrubbed and decked in Drooble's Dripless Candles. There was Mistletoe _everywhere_, under which Hudley would make them stop and hug, every time. The food was excessive. And despite how they barely saw each other, their odd family was growing ever closer.

Tuney had gotten a job at the neighbourhood library, where she could get _all_ _the latest gossip_, _and more_. As a side effect, she'd gained some compassion, mothering the lost souls who came to the library for lack of anywhere else to go.

They must have decorated a thousand gingerbread people that year, enough to feed everyone they knew.

Someone had taught Tuney to knit, and so they had all worn matching scarves on their excursion into London to go skating by the Natural History Museum. They even brought Dobby, glamoured and dressed in so many layers that he looked like a large pink beach ball wearing a bonnet.

"I heard about your Godfather," Petunia said late on Christmas day, when they'd both had a glass too many of eggnog.

Severus' stomach plummeted—he thought he might be sick. _Was this it, were they going to kick him out, make him live with Sirius Black?_

"That McGonagall teacher came by and told us. She said he was in Azkaban. _Azkaban!_" They both shuddered. "Anyway, he sounds like he's unhinged, Harry. You can't possibly go live with him."

Severus went boneless with relief.

"I mean, maybe we can do supervised visits?" Tuney hedged, misinterpreting entirely. "Your birth parents must have seen something redeemable in him."

"I'd rather—" Severus wiped embarrassing tears from his face, hating the way this body was full of all of the wrong kinds of feelings. "I mean, if you'll have me…."

Tuney wrapped him in a tight hug, pressing a kiss to his hair for the first time. "Of course you'll stay, boy. Don't be ridiculous."

Severus choked a laugh.

… …

Nevertheless, Severus and Hudley visited Black in his grim house on the last day of the Christmas Holiday. Hudley had wanted to see how his Godfather was doing, and Severus calculated it so Black and Lupin could Apparate them to Hogsmeade instead of making them waste the day on the train journey.

Hedwig and their bags perched in the corner by the troll's foot, while Hudley had tea with remnants of his past. Severus was not sulking. Rather, he was busying himself prodding the portrait of Black's mother.

"Scum!" she tried to screech, but Severus had already made good progress with the muffling charms.

All that practice repairing things with Hudley, and now he finally had the opportunity to properly take something apart.

"Mudblood!" she cursed, but Severus only sneered at her.

"Am I?" he said, and dabbed paint thinner onto a corner.

"Stop that!" she ordered, but Severus did not listen.

… …

He might have enjoyed letting his inner sadist out at the portrait a little too much.

"Morgana's tits, Harry," Black said in apparent awe. "That was brilliant. Bonkers, but brilliant."

"Well, _I am _a Hufflepuff. We're known for _finding _creative solutions to…things."

"I—suppose—sure. So. Er. Did you want tea?"

This was how Severus came to bear witness to Hudley having a staring contest with the Black elf.

_And he'd thought Dobby was off his rocker._

"Bring me the thing, Kreacher," Hudley commanded with a sorely lacking air of command. "You know, the important thing. The one that's…important. Oh, _bollocks_."

Black was smiling indulgently. "Yeah, Kreacher, bring us the most important thing."

And to their collective surprise, Kreacher cracked away, and back, holding—

"That's it," Hudley breathed, "the locket. I remember now. Regulus died for this."

… …

What followed was an entirely drawn-out affair involving Black family history and far more sobbing than Severus was comfortable with.

Edging away from the wailing elf, Severus excused himself and had Dobby deliver their latest Horcrux to his Gringotts vault, safe in another moleskine pouch.

… …

"I feel like we're missing something," Hudley announced after dinner in the kitchens, surrounded by their usual mixed-house company.

"Well it isn't food, that's for sure," said Ronald.

"Though it might be your table manners," said Draco.

Severus wasn't entirely sure when Draco had joined them, but he assumed Hudley had befriended him at some point. Years later, when he finally bothered to ask, Severus would learn Hudley had been presuming the same in reverse—Draco had snuck into dubious friendship with them through sheer Slytherin charm.

"Whatever it is, I'm sure we'll _find _it," Diggory said with a reassuring grin.

"Luna?" Hermione asked—the girl tended to compliment Hudley's missing pieces fairly well.

"I don't know," Luna said, a fresh Dirigible Plum adorning her ear. "Dudley's the one who sees things that aren't there. I just see the things most others can't."

_Well, that was entirely unhelpful._ The group dissolved into smaller conversations.

"My Daddy is writing an article about Stubby Boardman," Luna said, and Severus belatedly realised she was talking to him. "Do you think he might agree to an interview and an autograph?"

"Who is Stubby Boardman, and why do you think I know him?"

"Don't you know about the Rotfang Conspiracy?"

It was too much. Severus turned to Hudley, perplexed. "Why does Luna think I can get her _Stubby Boardman's autograph_?"

Instead of translating Hudley looked around, eyes wide with alarm.

"Where are the Creevey brothers?" he asked, voice squeaking into terror, "Has anyone seen Colin Creevey?"

"There was a Colin Creevey in my year," Ginevra explained with slightly-condescending kindness. "His parents pulled him from school after last Christmas. I don't know if he has a brother."

Hudley spent the rest of the evening staring into space, wearing a look of despair.

"Remember, Severus?" he whispered when they were behind privacy charms.

"I distinctly recall Colin Creevey bothering me well into OWL-level Potions," he disagreed.

"Yeah," Hudley said softly. "Which means, something changed. Something big." The boy buried his face in Severus' shoulder. "Remember, _The skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever_?"

Severus wished he could forget, wished he knew Parseltongue so he could go check, wished he had spared a thought for the annoying Muggleborn who had photographed _everything_.

He wished bitterly that it weren't already too late.

… …

On mouldy armchairs in Riddle Manor, a rat-like man, a snake and a handsome youth sat.

"How was I supposed to know he wasn't your right-hand man?" Tom Riddle Junior said. "It said in the paper—"

:I cannot believe: the snake hissed, :that you believed what you read in the _Daily Prophet_.:

The rat-like man said nothing, too preoccupied with trembling.

… …


	18. Lepidopterology

Lepidopterology

_BELLATRIX LESTRANGE ESCAPES AZKABAN  
What kind of prison are they running anyway, if people can waltz in and out as they please? —An act of investigative journalism by Rita Skeeter_

Hudley and Severus exchanged concerned looks across the Great Hall.

"This wasn't supposed to happen," Hudley whispered on the way to Charms. "Please tell me you don't remember this happening, either."

"_Supposed to_ implies a predeterministic attitude to causality with which I strongly disagree. While there may be a fixed-point and prophecy-driven fatalism enforced by a preternatural storytelling entity—"

"Severus!"

"No," he acquiesced, deflating with a sigh. "This was not supposed to happen. We fucked up. _I fucked up_."

"Nevermind that, what do we do? What does this mean?"

"It likely means there is another corporeal piece of the Dark Lord running around, following whatever agenda it is that Dark Lords usually pour into their teenage diaries."

"I don't think being so angry is helping."

"Oh _I apologise_," he hissed back, "let me just calmly accept how everything has gone to fu—"

"Oh no, Mister Potter, don't let me interrupt," Filius said, and it was only through long knowledge of the half-man that Severus could tell he was holding back laughter. Beside him, Hudley gulped audibly. Filius' voice hardened in challenge. "The rest of the class is practicing their Banishing charms, but I'm sure you can demonstrate a Summoning charm, too."

That was the fourth year curriculum, and they all knew it. "_Depulso_," Severus cast on his assigned pillow. "_Accio_."

Approval was written in Filius' eyebrows. "And you, Mister Dursley."

The pillow obeyed.

"Don't let me catch you again, boys. Though really, I don't understand why you're in my classes at all. I haven't taught you a thing in three years."

Hudley smiled brightly. "You're very good at explaining things I've forgotten."

Filius smiled back with genuine fondness crinkling his eyes. "Mister Dursley, work on putting as little magic you can into your spells, and silent casting. Mister Potter…just, at least _look _like you're paying attention, please. Set an example."

"So what are we doing about Bella?" Severus whispered, but Hudley was busy making his pillow spin midair, held by a combination of _Accio _and _Depulso_ alone. It was an impressive feat, which Severus was determined he could do better.

Thus began the competition that lasted well into lunch. Severus had a bigger core and decades more experience—Hudley had a competitive streak that could outfly a dragon.

They called it a draw for good measure.

… …

"So, Bellatrix Lestrange?" Hudley tried again that night, on the edge of magical exhaustion.

"Light her on fire," Neville suggested with hitherto unseen viciousness.

Severus wished he could cast _Muffliato_ without seeming extremely rude.

"I don't know how much more dangerous _The Big Bad_ is with her by his side. I mean, Bella's _batshit_," Hudley argued.

"The Dark Lord, too, has his periods of lacklustre logic."

"So, what, Bella's not a weapon so much as a handicap?" Hudley giggled girlishly, cleared his throat—and giggled again. "Can you picture her on Dad's golf course?"

"Isn't You-Know-Who meant to be, well, _dead_?" Neville insisted.

_Oh, Neville, you sweet summer child. _"Opinions differ. There's no need for you to worry, though—I will take care of it. And if I see Bella," Severus added, grinning, "I'll set her on fire for you."

… …

In the Riddle manor house on mouldy armchairs sat a rat-like man, a deranged witch, a misshapen baby, and a handsome youth, all of them in conference by a roaring fire.

"That sounds like a terrible plan," the youth was saying. "You, Pettigrew, support me in this."

The rat-like man snivelled.

"You dare to doubt our Lord?" raved the madwoman.

"Well, I'm your Lord too, just—different. Bigger, for one."

:Silence: the baby hissed.

"What does our Lord say?" The witch almost fell forward in her eagerness.

"Silence."

"You dare—!"

"No, I mean that's what he said: 'Silence.'"

"Oh." She turned and bowed to the inhuman baby. "Deepest apologies, my Lord. Oh, my Lord! Forgive me!"

:Silence!:

The handsome man rolled his eyes. "So, bone of the father, flesh of the servant, blood of the enemy—"

"It must be the boy, the Potter child! Your _greatest _enemy!"

"Yes, I can see the irony of it, but surely we must have a lot of _more easily accessible_ enemies—"

"—_Greater_ and more powerful than ever before—"

"Yes, we'll show them," the rat-man spoke, "The _most _powerful."

"Very well, I will concede your superior knowledge and experience concerning necromantic rituals," said the handsome man. "Now, about the other ingredients…."

The witch devolved into cackles.

… …

"So," Hudley greeted, "Have you decided what we do now?"

"We attend school, and we wait," Severus said firmly. _It was better this way._ They had to know what was coming so that they could prevent it—they couldn't prevent too many things or they wouldn't know what was coming. "The timeline has to be preserved as best possible."

Hudley's expression slid into incredulity. "But, what about the Diary, and Bella, and how everything is already different because you're…me…?"

"Pettigrew is still free to serve the Dark Lord, and Barty will break free from his father this summer. Then at the turning point, the resurrection, we will be ready to prevent it." _There was still the issue of how to interfere with an unknown ritual, of course._ "What happened that night, when Diggory died?" They had barely a year to go until then—if everything went to plan.

_If._

"There was a really big cauldron involved, I remember that," Hudley said.

_A potion_. Perfect. If Severus knew anything it was potions. "And?"

"…That's it. The rest is a blur. _Kill the spare_, he said, then green light, and Voldie soup."

_Oh for fuck's sake._ "Could you try to remember…anything else? At all? Where you were? Something else about the potion? Why you came back bleeding?"

"Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken."

Severus waited a good few minutes, but nothing more was forthcoming.

_Just…great. _And so Severus took the Potter Invisibility Cloak and read every Potions book in the Restricted Section.

And after a side trip to Borgin and Burkes during a Hogsmeade weekend, all of those books, too. And a few Necromancy tomes for good measure.

But he knew, he _knew_ he had read something about a similar ritual at some point during his Hogwarts teaching career. Which was what had led Severus up to this point, caught breaking into the Headmaster's office.

By a hat. Seriously, _fuck the hat_. Severus still hadn't forgiven it for failing to take all of his carefully thought-out plans into account when sorting him.

"Harry, my dear boy, what should I do with you?" Albus twinkled.

"Detention until the end of the year would be reasonable, sir."

"I could do that, yes." And that blasted Legilimency probed at him. Severus looked away. "Tell me, Harry, what were you hoping to find in my library that even the Restricted Section could not offer you?"

Severus might have winced. Albus had always seemed omniscient, but Severus _had checked_ for wards and monitors. _He had been so careful!_ This wasn't fair.

_Oh fucking hell, being thirteen was a curse._ "I think Bellatrix Lestrange is going to resurrect the Dark Lord—"

"You should call him by his name, Harry. Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself," said Albus Dumbledore, the only man the Dark Lord had ever feared.

"Well, he's a madman out to kill me. Forgive me for being wary."

"What makes you believe Lord Voldemort is going to return?"

Severus didn't deign to answer that one. Albus wasn't stupid, and Severus refused to be thought of as such a child that he couldn't even connect the most basic dots.

"So you think a potion will be involved, then? I can call our Potions master, maybe he will have some insight."

"He won't," Severus said, embarrassed to sound so petulant. But he knew what he himself had known at thirty-five, and Necromancy hadn't been a specialty of his.

"Very well, my boy. Detention, every Monday after dinner for the rest of term."

Severus' shoulders slumped of their own accord. _God_, but he wished Albus' good opinion didn't mean so much to him still.

"You will be helping me reorganise my personal library, dear boy. Now, I believe it is long past time you went to bed. Don't forget that excellent cloak of yours."

Heart forming an uncomfortable lump in his throat, Severus gathered himself just enough to run, run, run all the way to the ramparts on the fifth floor where Sebastian the Gargoyle's soft stone was waiting for a head-scratch.

Why, _why _did Albus still have so much power to get under his skin? His mentor had betrayed him, used him, _let Harry die_. Severus hated him, hated how used he had felt—

_Hated how much he loved the man, still._

Sebastian nuzzled against him, and Severus realised he was crying. _Being thirteen was such a curse._ Severus wanted to throw himself from the ramparts just to see what would happen—

Severus wanted to slap himself for being such a melodramatic twat.

And then the anger rose in him, hot burning rage to replace the heat of burning tears. _How dare Albus? The sheer favouritism! If one of Severus' Slytherins had broken into the Headmaster's office, rather than a Gryffindor or the prophesied Golden boy—!_

_Ugh._

_Ugh!_

Sebastian snorted in alarm as Severus knocked several shingles off the roof.

"Really, Mister Potter," he heard his own voice sneering, "Damaging school property now?"

_What did a man have to do, to get some room to think in this school?_

"_Reparo_," Severus snarled, vaulting back through the window and following his Professor-self to the Hufflepuff dormitories without another word.

… …

It took until April before Severus found it.

_Bone of the father, Blood of the enemy, Flesh of the servant._

The rest of the ingredients were just as terrible. Severus let the book thud to his feet, feeling nauseous. Fawkes trilled in the corner but it didn't soothe him.

"Harry?" Albus asked, kneeling beside him. "Harry!"

… …

"I don't know _what _you were thinking, Albus, letting him read such things," Poppy's voice filtered through to him.

Severus opened his eyes to see Hudley's blue-green staring unblinkingly back at him.

He and Hudley shared a smirk. They knew exactly what Albus had been thinking: anything to make the boy-saviour a better hero—be it Stone-saving adventures, Basilisk escapades, time travel for the sake of saving a Hippogriff and a lunatic, participating in a stupid tournament, running an illegal school club—

_Watching Albus fall dead from the Astronomy tower._

Access to dodgy reading material was nothing, _nothing _compared to the other sacrifices Albus was willing to make with Harry Potter's sanity and life.

… …

The next Hogsmeade weekend, Hudley and Severus went on a field trip to Little Hangleton, where they found the Riddle family plot and desecrated a grave.

They returned to school covered in dirt and glowing with a sense of accomplishment.

… …

"What about the Horcruxes, then?" Hudley asked. "I remember he had seven, but you're not one and we have two now and the Diary went for a walk."

"Albus mentioned there would be a moment where the Dark Lord would begin to keep Nagini close. I assume it means the snake was also a Horcux.

"So, the diary, the locket, the snake, the diadem, Harry Potter, the Big Bad personally and…."

"You broke into Gringotts, so we can assume one of them is there. We'll have to go over summer. Maybe you'll remember something useful."

"Yeah, maybe. But, well. What do we do with them? How do you kill a locket?"

Severus considered this for a moment.

"If worst comes to worst," he decided, "we'll do it Neville's way. Kill it with fire."

… …


	19. The Dursleys at the Quidditch World Cup

The Dursleys at the Quidditch World Cup

It was the day of the Quidditch World Cup, and Hudley was sulking.

"Viktor Krum was supposed to catch the Snitch," the boy groused, "but he's not even playing!"

Severus tried and almost succeeded at not laughing. _The day was too wonderful to waste it on a bad mood__._ "Petulance does not suit you, Dudders."

With a total lack of magic, they brought their Muggle bucket of water to their Muggle guardians, who were sitting by their Muggle tent getting a fire going for breakfast. The entire thing screamed _perfectly normal, thank you very much_.

Severus surreptitiously helped with the fire. Despite his overwhelming enthusiasm and Scout Association experience, Vernon was terrible at basic camping activities.

The man was reading aloud from a manual while his family exchanged looks. _This was their third day on the campsite, they knew how to spear sausages to hold above the fire by now._

"Maybe you and the boys should go exploring while I make breakfast," Tuney said.

"No, no, my Dudders needs to learn these things. This is _basic survival__!_"

"Constant vigilance," Hudley whispered, and Severus was hard-pressed to smother his laughter.

In an impressive display of actual survival skills, Hudley warded their campsite to the nines before they began the trek to the Quidditch pitch.

They had to stop twice for Vernon to catch his breath, ostensibly to admire various magical tents. _Oh God that was Lucius'_ —the peacocks were a dead giveaway.

"It isn't subtle," Tuney noted.

"The Malfoys don't do subtle," Hudley explained, and ran off—only to return with Draco.

"Mis'ess Dursley, and Mister Dursley," Draco greeted, eyes alight but etiquette too ingrained. Tuney stumbled through the act of having her hand kissed. "I heard you're _Muggles_?" And he said it with such delight, as if these were the first Muggles he'd ever met.

_Actually, these likely were the first Muggles Draco had ever met._

"We're on our way to the stadium, before the stampede begins," Severus explained. "You could join us."

Lucius was too busy networking, but Draco and Narcissa did end up joining them. Severus could tell she had very much wanted to turn her nose up at Tuney, but Tuney was already doing so. And now, they were having some odd kind of competition of mutual disdain and poorly-hidden curiosity.

Severus fell behind to better watch their backs—just in case._ One never knew what types were at these sorts of events._

Actually, he knew exactly what types were present. After all, he'd been at the World Cup _that time_, too.

They reached the top box without incident, dropped the Malfoys off and, after disguising Severus as _definitely-not-Harry-Potte__r_, they left to find their own seats.

"Ladies and gentlemen…welcome! Welcome to the final of the four hundred and twenty-second Quidditch World Cup!" Bagman boomed, and the crowd went wild.*

The Irish had brought the same dancing Leprechauns, while the Brazilians had brought Curupira Demons which performed a mad hypnotic choreography from the backs of hogs.

_Severus was just glad they hadn't brought Lethifolds._

Hudley and Tuney enjoyed the match, but it was nothing compared to Vernon's fervour. Whenever a Keeper blocked a goal the man would turn to the nearest person and shout over the cheering, "My son plays Keeper for his school team, did you know!"

Hudley wasn't even pretending to look annoyed, too busy being flushed from the excitement—and perhaps a little sunburnt.

The game went on for five hours, after which Brazil won in a breathtaking Seekers' battle. Vernon was a little hoarse from all his yelling, prompting Tuney to tut about honeyed tea.

They waited for the worst of the rush to pass before they got up from their seats, but Severus was nevertheless brushed, shoved and had his feet stepped on. If it hadn't been for the pesky underage magic laws, Severus would have cursed the man that almost bowled him over. Meanwhile, Vernon loomed beside Tuney with an implied threat that kept her safe enough—that, and the fact nobody knew these shamrock-bearing fans were Muggles.

… …

The sky was lit by all kinds of fireworks. The Dursley tent was one of the only ones that still appeared muggle.

"We should leave tonight, before everyone gets too drunk," Severus insisted for the fourth time, but Vernon was having too much fun.

"Dad!" Hudley said.

Vernon finally looked at Hudley properly. Saw the panic in his eyes. The boy's frantic, impotent rocking.

"He's right, dear," Tuney said. "Boy, pack up the tent."

Severus had never been so relieved to be talked down to. "Yes, Aunt Tuney."

They were checking out and heading for the terminal within half an hour, managing to snag a Portkey to London just for themselves.

Even as they stepped out of the Apparition wards, Severus could hear the shouts in the distance changing to screams of terror.

But before he could put his hand on his family's Portkey, something else jerked at his navel. He just had time to register Hudley's wide eyes.

_When did they get a buggering Portkey on me?_

… …

The Dark Rises

He landed on his feet, wand raised, _constant vigilance_ in the marrow of his bones.

Hudley landed in a pile beside him, but Severus did not spare the boy more than a glance. "Put on your cloak," Severus hissed. "_Don't_ be a hero." The boy disappeared, and Severus was deeply, deeply relieved.

The courtyard around him was familiar; the adjacent manor house and graveyard pinpointed Little Hangleton. If Severus hadn't already known exactly what was going on, the simmering cauldron big enough to serve as a prop in a Muggle play would have informed him.

An entire year ahead of schedule. _God, what had they done?_

But this was what they had been working towards, even if it was happening much too early. Severus did not resist as magical ropes bound him to a pillar. He watched Pettigrew carry an infant-sized abomination and toss it into the cauldron.

_Oh God. It was turning acid green already._ Severus knew what was coming next, and his stomach was twisted upon itself a hundredfold._ Please forget the fourth stir. Let something, anything go wrong._

The plume of smoke was exactly the right shade of violet as the bones went in, though the handsome young Death Eater improvised a counter-clockwise stir.

Bella took Severus' blood with far too much glee, and Severus wished he were young enough to _accidentally _set her on fire.

_Please let Hudley be alright. Please, God, I know you've forsaken me but—Hudley, let Hudley be safe._

Severus watched Pettigrew lopping off his own hand with vindictive glee.

"Soul of the Vanquished, you will rise greater than ever before!" cried the Death Eater, tossing a glint of gold in as a final ingredient.

_That had not been part of the plan._

The Death Eater fell to his knees, screaming. Pettigrew continued sobbing in a corner. Bellatrix was helping a naked humanoid Dark Lord from the overturned cauldron, and Barty Crouch Junior—_W__hen had he even gotten here?__—_was muttering darkly, pulling the Dark Lord's newest Potions master towards the house. The tar-black brew was seeping across the floor, scattering eldritch chunks.

Severus got the distinct impression that this wasn't going to anyone else's plan, either.

Suddenly stunners were flying across the courtyard, and Bella was screaming, cackling—

_Silence._

The dust settled. The air cleared.

Severus realised he was lying on the floor, and could hear nothing but his sluggish pulse in his ears. Something moved against his hand, and he wished he had the energy to move out of this potion—it reeked ironically of death.

He was beginning to notice that he had lost rather a lot of blood, and wondered with a peculiar sense of distance if this would be his second death by exsanguination.

"Drink." Someone was pressing a vial to his mouth.

The Blood Replenisher tasted like the sweetest of Albus' candies, not like Toadskin and Bloodmoss at all.

"They're gone," somebody called. "The house is empty."

"Potter will live," Severus' Professor-self proclaimed. Then a _Ferula_ went on Severus' arm, and he lost consciousness.

… …

"I got help," Hudley was explaining proudly. "I wasn't a hero."

Severus coughed instead of laughing. "And yet you saved me. Well done for keeping your head."

"Mum's furious. She's just about to murder on your behalf."

"I never thought I'd see the day," Severus murmured, closing his eyes against the white infirmary ceiling.

"Me neither."

… …

*Ludo Bagman's comment is taken from Chapter 8, Book 4 of the original HP series.


	20. Four Ways to Send a Message

Four Ways to Send a Message, and One Way Not to

Albus Percival Wulfric Dumbledore had been in the privy when the Patronus burst through his door, startling the shit out of him.

"Harry Potter's kidnapped," Dudley Dursley's great silvery bat announced in a boyish voice. "Meet by the Hog's Head."

Albus didn't think he'd ever moved so fast.

… …

Poppy Pomfrey had just been sitting down after a very long day watching Minerva enjoy herself at the World Cup.

She didn't get it—the barbaric sport caused injuries and heartbreak to no end—but Minnie loved it, so Poppy went with her. At least she could enjoy watching the witch she loved watch fifteen people zoom around playing Quidditch.

So it was with some relief that she managed to convince Minnie it was time to sit down and maybe have a nightcap.

That relief turned to ash in her mouth when the silver bat flapped in.

"Harry Potter's been kidnapped, meet by the Hog's Head. Bring Dittany."

Minnie sobered immediately. They abandoned their tent and ran for the edge of the wards to Apparate away.

… …

Amelia Bones had been in the middle of saving a group of children from some rowdy, drunken mob wearing black masks when she caught sight of a Patronus out of the corner of her eye.

She cursed and sent a stunner back at the mob—that delinquent's acid-yellow spell had almost hit her!

"…ter…idnapped…Hog's Head," a boyish voice exclaimed from the silver fruit bat's mouth, barely audible over the chaos and spellfire around her.

This was not a good time! She dispatched her enebriated opponents with three more stunners and turned—the children had fled into the forest. She'd never be able to catch up, _Merlin and Morgana_, but she hoped Susan would take good care of them.

Half the British auror force was in that forest. _They'd be alright. They had to._

With her Ministry-issued allowance to pass through the wards, she Disapparated.

… …

Severus Snape had been having a good day. He'd watched an excellent Quidditch game, gotten a little drunk, and was going to find Lucius and his wife. Hopefully their reduced inhibitions would result in the perfect finish to this very, very good day.

The abomination that was the Malfoy tent had its wards locked down, and no amount of knocking was bringing anyone forth.

Oh. There was silvery hair approaching, but at chest height.

"Sev, Sev!" Draco cried, sounding rather hysterical as he threw himself into Severus' arms.

Severus only just stopped them from toppling to the ground. Perhaps he'd had a bit more to drink than he'd thought. Oh, but it had been such a good day, and he had really been hoping for Lucius—

"Sev, I can't find father, and they're stringing up the Muggles, and I know they're just Muggles but—"

_Was Draco crying?_

Then the words wormed their through the haze of Severus' mind.

_Oh shite._

"Draco," Severus said, forcing their eyes to meet. "Run, hide in the forest. Don't look back. _No Gryffindor heroics_. Do you understand?"

The boy nodded, and Severus downed a sobering potion.

_Oh, fuck_, he should have disillusioned Draco before the boy had left—but it was too late now.

Severus saw the Dark Mark rising above the forest, casting everything in green horror.

_Oh fucking hell_, Draco was over there. It was a big forest, but still—Severus made to follow when he saw the Dursley boy's Patronus appear before him. It was weak, barely visible.

"Snape, please, the Hog's Head, co…me…qui…i…."

"Fuck!" Severus snarled, and started to run for the edge of the wards.

… …

Amos Diggory had been having a grand old time of the Quidditch World Cup. The tickets had been expensive, but his son Cedric—his greatest pride—had wanted this for an early birthday present. It had been a day to remember.

But now, after the game was over, the crowds were being downright uncivilised. Some people just couldn't handle their liquor.

He was glad to help Bartemius Crouch from the office of International Cooperation, when he had asked Amos to help with crowd control. Really—if the people were acting like animals then Amos, from the Department for the Control of Magical Creatures, was just the man for the job.

He hadn't been expecting the Muggle baiting. Nor the Death Eaters.

Nor the Dark Mark, cast from the depths of the forest where all the civilians had gone to hide.

Many Ministry employees had undergone basic Auror training with the threat of Grindelwald's and You-Know-Who's wars, and old Mad Eye had drilled certain responses into them. Amos was nevertheless proud that, upon Apparating to the scene of the crime, he found his colleagues in perfect formation.

Well, it would have been better to form a half-circle so as to avoid cross-fire, but there was in all things room for improvement.

"Stop! That's my son!" Arthur Weasley was shouting.

Oh dear! How terrible. But the children were safe, nobody was hurt. Amos sighed his relief. He couldn't help feel that they had been very lucky.

Then a bat Patronus appeared before him, fluttering desperately as it faded back out of existence. His gut lurched with fear. Where were the Dementors?

"That's Dudley's Patronus!" cried a bushy-haired girl.

Who was Dudley, and why was he sending Amos a Patronus message? The poor child must be very confused.

"Where're Harry and Dudley, has anyone seen them?"

Harry? _Harry Potter?_

Another Patronus winged in, Amelia Bones' long-eared owl. "Shacklebolt, there's been an incident. Bring a response team of eight, meet at the Hog's Head."

Amos' gut lurched again. Surreptitiously, he sidled up to Kingsley and joined the team preparing to leave. If _Harry Potter_ needed him, who was he to say no?

… …

Continuing Unto the End, Until it be Thoroughly Finished

"I don't remember," Severus repeated for the dozenth time. "The Portkey misfired, and there was a strange ritual involving a very large cauldron and my blood. They bound and blinded me. I don't know who it was. I don't know why they did it. No, that's all I know. I don't remember."

Severus might have been sorted Hufflepuff, but there were thirty years of Slytherin in him. He wasn't going to Gryffindor through this like Harry Potter had in his fifth year.

"Are you sure—"

Severus glowered. The auror left.

…

"Harry, my dear boy—"

Severus glowered, and Albus left.

…

"Harry, I came as soon as I heard—"

Severus glowered. Black recoiled.

"Look, I know we didn't meet under the best of circumstances, but I'm your godfather, Harry. Your parents chose me to look after you, and if you'll let me, I'd really like to try…."

The forlorn expression on that roguish face reminded Severus painfully of Regulus, whom he had spent endless hours commiserating with about the terrible reality of Sirius in Gryffindor.

"You're too late for that, Black," Severus spat, relishing the hurt in those eyes.

And Black left.

… …

The Life and Lies of Peter Pettigrew

Peter Pettigrew had been an unremarkable child. He had always followed remarkable people, the biggest bullies on any given playground. As long as he was by their side, they couldn't be picking on him, after all.

When it seemed Dumbledore's side was losing, he had jumped ships over to the bigger bully's. Anything to stay safe. The Light side was the less dangerous enemy, while any stray _Avada Kedavra_ would end his life.

So the unremarkable child grew into an unremarkable man, who lived an unremarkable life as an unremarkable rat.

Then Padfoot was after him, and he fled back to his Lord who would keep him safe. Peter had chosen his side, it was branded on his arm. He had to stand by his choices now. He was a Gryffindor, after all. It didn't mean he acted bravely, but he did value bravery. So Peter took a leap of faith.

For perhaps the first time in his life, Peter tried to be brave.

He helped his Lord. He killed the witch and took the life growing in her. Following his Lord's instructions, he prepared the body and performed the ritual, and the Dark Lord rose again—in the body of a premature baby.

It wasn't suitable, but it was better than being a wraith, or living on the back of someone's head. Peter did not ask his Lord why it had sounded like he was speaking from experience when he'd said that.

Peter had been a rat for twelve years, but at least he'd had the rat-body all to himself.

Then the other man came. He was handsome, and charismatic, and called himself Tom Marvolo. When he said he was the Dark Lord too, Peter believed him. The Dark Lord was the greatest wizard since Dumbledore, after all. Yet, not even Albus could create several versions of himself.

Tom Marvolo was kind to Peter. He did not get impatient when he had to explain things twice. He did not cast Crucio when Peter's body was too weak to obey.

When Tom Marvolo said they would be changing the potion slightly to make the Dark Lord better, saner, more powerful—Peter agreed that strengthening _Him_ made sense. He accompanied Tom Marvolo to a small house in the nearby woods, where they collected bones and an ugly ring. There was power in the bones, and there was power in the ring.

Peter knew about power. He'd spent his whole life scurrying after it.

When the cauldron tipped over, Peter feared that everything had gone wrong, that Tom Marvolo had messed up the potion, that this was the end of them all. Peter's hand was still bleeding terribly—the bandage he had tried to wrap around it was crimson with blood.

He wondered if Harry would tell people what he had seen here. He wondered where the others had gone—was that spellfire?

Peter Apparated away just as he felt the wards come up.

Kingsley Shacklebolt would later find a chunk of flesh by a tombstone and chalk it up to a spilled potions ingredient.

By the seaside near Allhallow, where the Thames flowed into the English Channel, two Azkaban escapees and two Dark Lords looked around at the sound of Apparition. Seeing no one, they gave up on Pettigrew and moved on to their next safehouse.

By the seaside near Allhallow, where the Thames flowed into the English Channel, a rat-like man lay in the gutter, swiftly bleeding out. Besides the lopped-off hand, he was inexplicably missing a piece of his thigh. The muggles chalked it up to gang violence spreading from London.

And so, Peter Pettigrew's unremarkable life ended in an unremarkable death, entirely unremarked upon.

The Muggles buried him in the Allhallow graveyard. The stone read _John Doe, No. 13._

… …

Okay, so apparently this needs to be said—**please don't bash characters in your reviews**. Have some basic human decency.


	21. Severus, Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Severus, Potter and the Goblet of Fire

The monotony of lying in Pomfrey's domain was broken by the sound of approaching voices.

"Really, what kind of a world are you running?" Tuney's voice echoed in the domed room. "Kidnappings, riots, murders and mortal danger! I have half a mind to pull my boys from your school, Albus Dumbledore."

Severus wished Albus would speak up, so that he could hear what would likely be a truly pathetic excuse.

"And why take him here, instead of to a hospital? Surely your kind has hospitals. Really now!"

Tuney, neck at full length and seething in fury, finally strode into his line of sight. Hudley and Severus' Professor-self were trailing her, looking impressed.

Albus was trotting awkwardly alongside at Tuney's determined pace, looking as flustered as he really ought to, given the circumstances.

"Boy, get dressed. We're going home."

… …

Later, Severus would find an odd stone bearing Grindelwald's mark in his robe pocket.

_The very stone that had been on the ring Albus had died for, back then_. The golden setting was now mangled beyond recognition, so Severus gave it to Hudley for his collection of broken things.

_Perhaps they'd be learning goldsmithing next_.

… …

Tuney did not end up withdrawing them from Hogwarts, though Hudley's overly conspicuous owl delivered a great deal of letters between her and Albus.

And thus, Hudley and Severus were back on the Hogwarts Express, occupying two and a half compartments together with Hudley's following of friends.

"I wonder what we'll be needing dress robes for?"

"Mine are maroon, I _hate_ maroon."

"Oh, you don't know? My father's told me _all _about it."

Speculation about the Tournament ran rampant, while Severus and Hudley repaired a self-refilling flask by the window.

"What are we doing about Mad-Eye?" Hudley whispered.

"What about him?" Severus said, casting _Muffliato_.

"Well, he has a mad eye," Hudley explained. "What if it's like mad cow? It could be catching."

_Yes, that had been exactly Severus' concern, as well. _"It might just be the real Moody. We can't accuse him of being Barty Junior groundlessly."

"I wish we had the map."

"Which map? And where did you get it?"

"A map of Hogwarts that shows where everyone is, my father made it. And, well…I don't know."

_How supremely helpful._ Severus had seen something similar on Lupin's desk on the man's last night as a teacher, but he hardly had reason to get in touch with last year's Defence Professor.

But if James Potter could make something as a schoolchild, then Severus and Hudley could easily do the same as adults. They had plenty of enchanting practice, anyway. It was only a matter of connecting the parchment with Hogwarts' wards.

Severus took out a notebook to begin scratching out possible rune matrices—and felt an odd delight when Hudley leaned against him and began making suggestions.

… …

Severus did not wonder when Luna and Hudley paused to coo at the Thestral that pulled their carriage, nor was he surprised that there was no Defence Professor present at the feast. The announcement about Quidditch being cancelled drew outrage, the announcement about the Triwizard Tournament brought the expected wave of excitement.

Then, Alastor Moody—or his polyjuiced counterpart—failed to make an appearance. In fact, Albus made no mention of the empty seat at the head table, at all.

Severus went to bed feeling distinctly queasy.

… …

The next day, Remus Lupin walked into breakfast looking just as tattered as usual.

Severus very nearly spat out his tea.

… …

"Potter," Severus' Professor-self held him back after class.

Severus hoped it wasn't about the way he had brewed the base for Veritaserum instead of the assigned Asphodel Antidote. He didn't have high hopes, though.

"Potter," his Professor-self repeated once they were alone. The man sat behind his desk and looked ready to start tearing his hair out. "What am I supposed to do with you? I cannot give you a passing grade if you fail to do the assigned work, no matter how impressive your brewing is."

Severus preened at his own approval. _He knew how high his standards were, after all_. "I don't mind a bad grade, sir," he said honestly.

"Your record so far is _terrible_, Potter, and at this rate L'Ecole Magriculeuse will not take you for further education."

Severus swallowed. It would be a blow, not to be able to attend his Alma Mater. Not that he'd ever want to teach again, but there were so many wondrous experiments to run, and the laboratory there had been—magical. "I'll try harder, sir."

"I have spoken with Professor Sprout and Professor Dumbledore about having you moved up to a higher year. Your cousin too, if he is interested. Despite his lack of...focus, he has yet to brew something that wasn't—adequate."

Severus preened even harder. He had taught Hudley, _him_. Any prowess the boy showed was at least partially contributable to himself.

"Well, child? Do you agree to move to NEWT classes?"

_NEWT_ classes? Severus was completely unable to smother his grin. "Yes, sir." He made to leave, knowing his exuberance was most likely getting on his Professor-self's nerves.

"Potter," his voice called him back, an unexpected hint of fondness in those unfathomable black eyes.

"That stone you were holding during your unfortunate kidnapping, be careful with it. Grindelwald's sign is not seen gladly."

_That explained how he had ended up with the mangled ring. _"Yes sir."

… …

"You've been moved up to OWL preparatory Potions classes," Severus told Hudley, and he wasn't sure which of them was happier about this. "I'm so proud of you."

Hudley's smile outshone Severus' by a wide margin-but the warm glow thrummed in the back of Severus' mind all week.

… …

Severus wasn't surprised when the Cup's flames turned orange another time, spitting out the name of the fourth Triwizard Champion.

"Harry Potter," Albus whispered, but it projected as though he had shouted it.

After exchanging a look with Hudley, Severus got to his feet and walked to the antechamber, his head held high.

"I believe you," Cedric assured him later. "You're not the type to go looking for glory."

Severus granted the boy a small smile. "Thank you," he said, and meant it.

It seemed that the entire school had gotten this impression over the past three years: _Harry Potter was interested only in watching out for his cousin._

There were no _Potter Stinks_ badges. There was no mad Hufflepuff uprising.

Instead, there was an endless stream of people approaching him to say, "I believe you," and "Hey, that's rubbish," and, "If you need a hand you'll let us know, yeah?"

It was…odd.

Not unpleasant, but also very, very odd.

… …

AN: The usual - your reviews and support is what keeps authors like me posting. Thank you all for being so lovely.

I've been migrating some of my work to AO3, in case you want to head over and give me kudos there (Same name: AverageFish).

Check out my other fics here, too. If you enjoyed this one you're likely to enjoy the rest.

… …


	22. The Weighing of the Wands

The Weighing of the Wands

Binns didn't even notice when some first year came to fetch Severus for the Weighing of the Wands.

Severus didn't notice either, because he hadn't attended a history class since 1974.

Three Patronus messengers and a very, very out-of-breath Ravenclaw firstie later, Severus strode into the antechamber where the ceremony was taking place.

"Ah, Mister Potter, how good of you to join us," Olivander greeted cordially.

Severus had made sure not to run, but he couldn't help the nervous sweat plastering his shirt to his back. _He hated being late._

"Perhaps we should have sent a Hufflepuff to _find_ you instead," Albus quipped. Severus wasn't sure if Diggory or the red-faced Ravenclaw was more affronted.

Delacour, Krum, and Diggory were sitting along one wall, twiddling their thumbs. The Headmistress and -masters were evidently partaking in the dubious pleasure of Albus' lemon drops.

Rita Skeeter's eyes were unnaturally wide under her glasses, and it was making Severus distinctly uncomfortable.

"Curious, most curious," Ollivander said as he examined Severus' wand. It was slightly worn, but Severus was a wizard. He kept it well polished and in perfect working order, thank you very much.

"What's that, Mister Ollivander?" Skeeter's voice grated.

Upon seeing Severus' and Albus' glares the wandmaker couldn't click his mouth shut fast enough.

"_Vinus_," he said instead, seemingly entirely engrossed by the fluid fountaining from Severus' eleven-and-a-quarter inches into an also-conjured wineglass. He raised a drop of the wine to eye level and tasted it. "Ah yes, everything seems to be perfectly in order."

"Now that we're all here, the Prophet and her readers are simply salivating for some pictures," Skeeter simpered. "And perhaps an interview with the champions? Harry?"

Severus made sure there wasn't a single picture where he wasn't scowling, just to spite her. Then the other champions left, evidently already done with their interviews. Severus resisted all of Skeeter's efforts to coax him into a broom closet. _A bit of privacy, my arse._

Hudley chose that moment to arrive, bursting through the door in the epitome of Gryffindor glory. "Here—you—are—" he wheezed, and promptly doubled over to clutch his side.

Severus didn't consider himself a paranoid man, he just liked to be prepared. After performing a series of diagnostics and administering a mild muscle relaxer, he turned back to Skeeter.

"This is my cousin, Dudley," Severus introduced awkwardly.

The acid-green quill was already on its second foot of parchment.

_Giving me the chance to meet his cousin Deadly, Harry Potter shows us that nothing is more important to him than his family. So keep that in mind, ladies, as you—_

"I'm gay."

Skeeter blinked her beetle-eyes. Hudley looked startled, but it was his most common expression, so Severus was unsure if this was in any way related to his comment.

The quill skipped a line and kept writing.

_"I've always wanted to be true to who I am," Harry Potter tells this reporter, blushing slightly. "That's why I entered this tournament, as a way to prove myself. And, I'd like to chose this moment to come out." The boy looks down, nervous but full of strength and pride. "I'm gay."  
"He's also single and looking," his cousin Deadly adds, showing just how supportive this tight-knit family is. "But if you hurt him, I'll—"_

Severus' mind finally caught up to—this, whatever it was. "His name is _Dudley_, and he's not threatening anyone across Britain's most-read paper. Besides, I didn't enter my name in the Tournament, everyone knows that."

The quill skipped another line.

"Oh, but I was looking forward to finding out what I'd do should someone hurt you!" Dudley whined.

_"Everyone knows the Daily Prophet is Wizarding Britain's prime newspaper," Harry Potter tells yours truly (Rita Skeeter, five-time recipient of Witch Weekly's 'Juicy Journalism' award, member of the Poison Quill Society, and voted by Hogwarts' class of 1968 the Most-Likely-to-be-the-Target-of-an-Assasination). "I'm ever so honoured to be interviewed," young Harry continues. "I'd like to say for the record," and here, he winks, "that I did not enter myself in the Triwizard Tournament."_

"We should rename it," Hudley interrupted. "It's three wizards and one witch. You're perpetuating sexism and that's not okay."

The quill, miraculously, stopped.

"Well—" Skeeter began. "It's…um. Tradition?"

"Call it the Butmagical Bout," Hudley suggested.*1

To Severus' horror, the quill resumed writing.

"So tell me about yourself," Skeeter said.

… …

The headline the next day read:

_BUTMAGICAL BOUT BEGINS_

_"I'm a little nervous, but I know my family supports me," says Harry Potter, the youngest champion. A potions prodigy and natural teacher, he is also known for having helped the entire school learn the Patronus charm last year. _

_"I'd like to thank my father and all my friends. It's great to have a chance to prove myself for Hufflepuff, for Hogwarts and for Britain," says Cedric Diggory. The young man is also Seeker for his House Team._

_"This is it. The big one, the one we've all been waiting for,"*2 says Fleur Delacour. The stunning witch is taking Hogwarts by storm, but admits her younger sister will always come first for her._

_"The others will be good competition, I think. We will see," says Victor Krum. The international Quidditch star, youngest Seeker to represent his country in over a century, also enjoys expanding his collection of hand-crafted model boats._

Severus gaped. The article went on, but it didn't have a single word of slander, and didn't even insinuate a _hint_ of scandal.

Across the room at the Gryffindor table, Hudley caught his eye and grinned.

_What had the brilliant bastard done?_

… …

Weary but self-satisfied, the Dark Lord sat on an ornate armchair in the Malfoys' drawing room.

"Tom Marvolo Riddle," he directed at the enchanted mirror in his spidery hand.

"Lord Voldemort," his younger self greeted him from somewhere far away.

"Lucius has admitted us into his manor, as I said he would. An elf will collect you at the gate." _It felt so good to have a body again, a real human body with fingers that could curl around his yew-and-phoenix. A mouth that could speak English rather than just hiss. _

Bella kept trying to get into bed with him, but that was understandable._ She was his most faithful, after all. And her warmth curled against him was—nice._ Since gaining this body, Lord Voldemort found himself drawn to heat, and prone to sitting in the sunshine.

_Oh, had his younger self been talking over the mirror? But the child was so green and oddly patient. Full of silly ideas like breaking the Ministry from the inside. No, that would never do. They needed a war—not a pathetic little coup d'état._

"What did you say?"_ It might have been important, or interesting. His younger self had useful things to contribute, sometimes._

"Why is Harry Potter competing in the Butmagical Bout? How did that even happen?"

_Other times, it was annoying, to have his decisions questioned_. "Oh, the Tournament? I told Karkaroff to arrange it. He might die, and that will be one problem less."

"Have we decided to disregard the Prophecy then? Very well. This Tournament situation has been drawing undue attention, but we can use that. I will…."

_Oh, but it was good to have a body again._ Lord Voldemort let the magic dance under his skin, flickering with potential._ If only one of his minions were here to be tortured, but the rat Pettigrew had been lost in their move from Riddle Manor. Not that Lord Voldemort cared. Wait,_ the Prophecy_? He should really find out what it said—_

"Hmmm?" he said. _If only his younger self wouldn't prattle on in so much monologue!_

"My research has shown that parts of the same soul seem to attract and repel each other like magnets. Or in our case, it has forged a link while also making us unable to bear each others' presence without great pain."

:Lord Voldemort fears no pain: he felt moved to hiss. :Lord Voldemort fears _nothing_!:

"What about the whole 'flee from death' thing, then?"

Lord Voldemort's arm twitched, sending the mirror across the room to shatter against a far wall.

_He did not fear death._

_He had conquered death, after all. He had faced his worst fear and come out—_

_Not_ fractured, _no—he was_ multiplied.

_Now, about that Prophecy…._

… …

*1 _Butmagical Bout_ is an organic chemistry joke. The numbering system has the prefix 'but-' for 'four'. For example you may be familiar with methane, ethane, propane and BUTane gases.

*2 "This is it. The big one, the one we've all been waiting for," is Oliver Wood's pre-game speech in HP1. I've just put it in Fleur's mouth because it entertains me.

… …


	23. 14 Years Old & Invincible—New: 23 Nov

I previously began this chapter with a frustrated rant reminding some rude, entitled reviewers that _nagging_ never got anyone anywhere. I then posted the incomplete chapter. I have since managed to finish it, together with my wonderful** beta Eider Down** (his time-travel epic at: fanfiction dot net/s/13010260/).

Here you go. Thank you for all your kind encouragement and patience.

* * *

Fourteen Years Old—and Invincible

The dragon roared. Severus ducked his head behind a boulder and downed a Flame Resistance Potion. He'd had to adjust the recipe to let it withstand dragonfire, but that had hardly been a challenge. Then, for good measure, he charmed his robes flame-proof too—it wouldn't do to end up starkers. Next came the scent-blocking, silencing, and invisibility spells.

Severus stepped out from behind his boulder as nothing more than a shimmer in the air.

Unable to locate a threat, the beast went back to breathing on her eggs.

Knees trembling, Severus summoned every bit of Gryffindor he had and stepped forward, _one foot at a time_, until he was in the nest, casting invisibility on the egg, picking it up—

The crowd roared its approval.

The dragon breathed another gout of flames onto her eggs—and Severus. Cheers turned to screams.

Severus walked away, heart still in his throat. _One step at a time. One foot before the other_. He could see Hudley just outside the arena, eyes entirely clear as they followed his progress.

The Disillusionment broke when he stepped through the wards containing the dragon. Hudley was right there to catch him, so Severus let his weak knees give.

He lost points because his hair had been entirely burnt off, but Severus didn't care. He'd survived a dragon. _A dragon! _He felt fourteen years old—and invincible.

… …

"I don't understand why you didn't ask me for help," Sirius Black whined, clapping Severus on the shoulder.

Severus ducked out of the way. "Don't touch me," he snarled.

Black just ruffled his hair, laughing.

"I thought he was _brilliant_," Hudley interjected, drawing Black's attention away.

_Thank you Hudley. You can have my portion of treacle tart for this_, Severus promised.

"So what would you have done, Sirius?" Hudley prattled on.

"Well—" Black paused, apparently racking his brain for a non-idiotic thought. "I'd have..."

They waited several moments, but evidently nothing was forthcoming. "How fortunate I didn't ask you for advice then, seeing as you have none." Severus fumed, and stormed off to dinner.

_This was supposed to be _his _day, _his _magical feat, _his _cousin—_

_Why did Black always have to ruin everything?_

There were footsteps running behind him. Severus turned, ready to tell Sirius Black where he should shove…

"Oh."

Hudley just grinned wildly in response, slightly out of breath. "I thought you were brilliant," he repeated, slipping his hand into Severus' as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

Severus squeezed back and led the way to dinner.

He felt fourteen years old—and invincible.

… …

They finished their map of Hogwarts at the start of December. It was a beautiful, intricate piece of spellwork that filled Severus with effervescing pride.

Hudley spent a week with his nose almost pressed to the parchment, exclaiming at odd intervals about things Severus really didn't want to know.

For one, there were apparently a lot more broom closets than a school could reasonably need—at least not for broom-storing purposes. Half the school seemed to be frequenting them in some configuration or another.

Severus had known theoretically that teenagers were a randy bunch, but this did seem excessive.

The patrolling aurors all had sufficiently auror-y names, with no other Death Eaters besides Karkaroff on the castle's grounds. Even Alastor Moody was_ actually Alastor Moody_.

Everything seemed perfectly normal, which just enhanced Severus' feeling of anticipation_—__that something was going to happen. That it was all going to go terribly, horribly wrong._

Beside him, Hudley gasped, jolting Severus to his side.

"What is it, what have you learnt?" he asked, almost tripping over his words.

"Look!" Hudley said, pointing at—Trelawney's bedroom? "Did you know that _Sinastra and Trelawney_ were _together_?"

Severus had not known, but it was decidedly none of their business. He took the map from Hudley and folded it carefully. _Evidently, there was nothing they could learn from it._

Everything seemed perfectly normal, except for the creeping feeling of unease continuing to make itself at home under Severus' skin.

… …

From opposite ends of the Malfoy ballroom, a snake-like not-man and a handsome youth were yelling at each other.

"We need to break my followers out of Azkaban," came the hissy decision.

"What will you even do with them? They're all mad. This is madness!"

And then they devolved into actual hissing, so Lucius stepped away from the one-way mirror with which he _had __not _been eavesdropping. Just…information gathering.

When the Dark Lord had showed up at his door 'requesting' accommodations, Lucius had welcomed him. When he'd brought Barty Crouch Junior and Bellatrix Lestrange with him, Lucius had been slightly more wary—they had spent years in Azkaban, after all.

But he was the Dark Lord. When he ordered, Lucius obeyed.

"Do you think they're done yet?" Narcissa asked. There was a certain disdain in her voice, though Lucius could only hear it because he knew her so well.

"We should have Tippy prepare the guest rooms, dear. It seems we will be having more company soon. Perhaps some Sleeping Draught wouldn't be amiss, they're sure to have…troubles…from their incarceration."

Narcissa's nose scrunched at the edges in the way Lucius still, twenty years later, found utterly adorable. He leaned over and kissed her cheek.

"I do not understand why they can't talk in the study like civilised people," she groused, but her lips had twitched into a smile at the kiss.

"I do not know, my flower. They seem to go to great lengths not to come too close to each other. And sadly, barbaric shouting comes at no effort at all."

"As long as they don't start throwing my best china—"

"That was _one time_, Cissa, and I did say I was sorry."

Narcissa said nothing, but she took his hand and squeezed it before walking away, and Lucius understood that, despite his many, many failings, his wife would support him always. _He felt so very lucky._

… …

"Bones," Severus called across the common room, "Will you go to the ball with me? Platonically?"

Bones' face twisted in incredulity. "Why? You've never even properly talked with me."

"I find your ability to uphold an intellectual conversation tolerable."

Bones laughed. The common room was listening with bated breath. "What colour are your dress robes, then?"

_What did that have to do with anything? _"Blue."

Bones huffed another laugh, and Severus was finally beginning to realise that he was rather out of his depth._God, but girls were difficult._

"Yeah, alright." She grinned. "Platonically."

_Oh. _

_Maybe it was that simple after all._

… …

For the dozenth night in a row, Severus woke with the fading suspicion that he had dreamt something important, something vital, about something he wanted desperately to find.

By the time he had silenced his alarm, the dream was entirely gone, dismissed by so much Occlumency.

… …

Hudley asked Luna to the Ball after Charms, when most everyone was too busy bustling between classes to care.

Severus wasn't fooled, he knew the Hogwarts gossip mill likely knew the outcome of this conversation and had spread it to all corners. At every end-of-year staff meeting, Severus would bring this up to explain why _children_ should not be given _time-turners. _

"How come you don't hang out with us anymore, Luna?" Hudley said to the girl's eyebrows.

Luna stared at Hudleys right ear as she replied. "If you're me and he's you, where am I supposed to fit in?"

Severus swallowed his discomfort. The girl was uncanny, and he was glad that she just sounded mad to everyone else.

"I—I was hoping that you'd go to the ball with me, actually," Hudley said, eyes wide as the worlds tumbled over each other in their haste.

"Alright." Luna agreed simply. "Will you stop being me, then?"

"I promise I'll try."

And that, apparently, was that.

… …

Severus had had to show Bones his robes later, to make sure there were certain fashion compatibilities which Lucius surely would have understood but Severus himself did not. And then, on the night of the ball, they accompanied each other, danced just often enough to be polite, and had some interesting discussions about the state of Wizarding politics.

He spent most of his time watching Hudley and Luna participate in something that could be construed as dancing, if one were generous. But the boy looked to be having a grand time of things, so Severus enjoyed himself a little, too.

By the end of the night he agreed to call her Susan, and decided the ball hadn't been so bad after all.

… …

Thank you for your encouragement. All my lovely readers, reviewers (and silent lurkers), you make sharing this worthwhile.


	24. The Power to Vanquish (PotVan)

The Power to Vanquish

The next day, the Weasleys were missing from breakfast. Severus thought nothing of it, though he could tell Hudley was upset about something.

After watching him fail to eat, Severus brought the boy to the Room of Requirement for some privacy.

"They found Arthur Weasley this morning," Hudley finally told him, huddled under a blanket by the fireplace. "He'd been attacked by a huge venomous snake."

Severus felt bile rising in his throat. His hands moved of their own accord to check, but there were no twin holes, no lifeblood draining from him.

_Then why did he feel so light-headed?_

"Did this happen before too?" Hudley asked.

Severus wanted to lie. "Yes," his voice whispered instead. "A year later."

"Arthur died there, too?" That voice sounded so small and devastated. "I thought…I should have remembered…."

"Harry Potter received a vision from the Dark Lord in his fifth year. He saw Arthur Weasley's attack." Severus swallowed thickly. "Potter got help for the man, and Arthur survived."

"…oh."

"I'm so sorry, Harry. I'm so, so sorry."

It wasn't enough. _A man ripped pointlessly from this world_. It was the opposite of their noble intentions—this second chance at life that they were devoting to saving people—which had now been turned upside down and thrown in their faces.

"What was Mister Weasley even doing that got _The Big Bad_ to send his snake after him? What's the Dark Lord's problem? Can't he just leave us alone?"

Severus held his cousin tight, though he wasn't sure which of them needed it more. "There was once a young man who wanted to impress a young woman by joining the Death Eaters," he began, "and when the man overheard part of a prophecy, he brought it to the Dark Lord hoping for favour…."

… …

"So back then, I thought I had to do in the Dark Lord because of something _Trelawney _said?" Hudley asked.

Severus felt lightheaded again, this time with relief. "Albus was very convincing."

"That's rubbish, though. Is there any way we can hear the full prophecy, at least?"

… …

The day before term resumed, four teenagers followed a cowled Department of Mysteries worker down to Level Nine.

They walked down dark marble hallways, lit by flaming torches. _Even Hogwarts' dungeons have better lighting than bloody flaming torches_.

Severus kept his eyes on the floor, somehow expecting to find some remnant bloodstain.

There was nothing, no mark of the tragedy that had taken place here not a week ago.

"I don't understand why they're allowing the four of you in here," the cowl spoke, voice indecipherable. "It isn't done."

"Consider it a sort of experiment," Severus said brusquely. "Besides, Neville has connections, and I'm the Boy Who Lived. A degree of special consideration is to be expected."

They stood before the looming shelves of row ninety-seven, and peered at the fateful little plaque.

It wasn't the cold that was making them shiver—though Hermione seemed immune, jotting down notes and treating this rather like a school trip.

Trepidation in his fingers, Severus reached out his hand. It felt like the world was holding its breath.

He touched the glass, smooth under his palm, and wrapped his fingers around it. Then, feeling as if it carried the weight of the world, he lifted.

The orb did not resist. Startled, he dropped it right back onto the shelf.

"Alright, now let me try," Hudley said, and before Severus could shout out his protest the boy was tossing it from hand to hand. "Huh. Well, that's unfortunate." He put it back down.

"This is silly," Hermione argued. And then her hand darted out and she, too, had her turn holding glass-encased mist. "How are we supposed to know whom the prophecy's about if just anyone can pick it up?" She sounded cross, and her unhappiness echoed in the clink of the glass returning to the shelf.

All of them turned to regard Neville, who blanched. "I don't think this is a very good test," the boy said with the quivering voice of someone who had, in his short life, failed a great many tests.

Nonetheless, the Gryffindor's hand reached, trembling. It strained—

The prophecy stayed put.

"Right, well—" They watched Hermione as she grasped for words and came up wanting. "Well, I suppose we ought to hear what it says?"

Nobody had a better suggestion, so they let Sybill's voice creak around them like the Whomping Willow.

The fatalism came with a punch to the gut.

_The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches____…  
____Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies___…  
___and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not____…  
____and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives….*_

"Well that's just rubbish," Hermione said. "I'm a _girl_—"

"Maybe it's meant as a metaphor?" Neville croaked.

"—and my birthday is in September—"

"_Septem_ber, Hermione?" Hudley said, a teasing lilt to his voice.

Severus thought they were all taking this rather well. Himself, he was still caught on the _neither can live _bit—it sounded rather like nuclear warfare.

_Mutually assured destruction_.

"So, Mister-or-Ms.-Unspeakable," Hermione said, stepping out from behind their privacy charm, "what do we do with this now that we've heard it?"

"You put it back."

"Is that standard operating procedure after someone _died _guarding this stupid thing not a week ago?" Severus asked, scowling his disdain.

"We don't have a protocol for that," the cowl admitted.

"Right," Hudley decided for them all, still tossing the orb between his hands at an alarming speed. "I'll make you a protocol then. Oh look, _oops_."

The sound of prophecy smashing against the marble was decidedly satisfying. A pint-sized Trelawney formed from the released mist, though a quick _Muffliato_ silenced her.

Severus was not surprised when the Unspeakable asked them, rather firmly, to _please leave now_, with a strongly implied _and don't ever come back_.

But the prophecy was safe from Voldemort's knowledge, and somehow—with him, Hudley and Hermione all prophesied to vanquish the Dark Lord—Severus wasn't feeling quite so overwhelmed.

_In fact, the Dark Lord should consider himself outnumbered._

… …

They formed a group, which Hermione rather unfortunately named _Power to Vanquish_. Abbreviated, naturally, to PotVan.

"So if _he's_ surviving, _I _can't live," Hudley was speculating, teasing the words apart. "But in reverse, if _you_ survived then _he _can't live. Oh, this is just mental."

"I really don't see what this has to do with you at all, Dudley," Hermione protested.

"Hush, Hermione," Hudley said kindly, "_Fate_ has spoken."

"The question should be," the girl said, already scribbling down notes of the first official PotVan meeting, "he was vanquished already, so arguably he's not really properly living anymore. How do you kill someone that isn't alive?"

"Well we don't need to kill him. We just need to un-survive him." Hudley's genius decided to strike like lightning. The air was filled with the scent of ozone. "Why don't we transfigure him into a shoelace or something? What does Gamp's Law say, does that count as _living_?"

Severus laughed. Loudly. In the middle of the library, eliciting a grand chorused _shhhh_. But, _this was brilliant_. "You're brilliant, Dudley. Quasi-death by shoelace. What's the expression again, there's more than one way to skin a cat?"

"But what about me?" Hermione interjected.

"Well…I am…uncertain." Severus admitted.

"It only says we _have _the power, not that we'll _use _it." Hudley said with startling logic. "And anyway, you haven't been marked. So I think you can safely ignore destiny for now, Hermione."

…

Thus winter gave way to more winter, the Weasleys mourned, and the PotVans wondered about grand fateful things—and their next homework assignment.

… …

AN because I'm getting a lot of reviews about this: You may have noticed that this fic has a canon-divergent plot. I also have a sequel planned. You don't need to understand how Hermione fits into the prophecy, but you can accept that it works out and that I know what I'm doing. Thanks.

*The prophecy is verbatim from canon (c) Rowling. Sorry to subject you to it for the millionth time.

My dog typed "**qq1_`**" into this chapter. I do not have the heart to delete her contribution.


	25. Twixt the Green Sea and the Azured Vault

'Twixt the Green Sea and the Azured Vault

Cedric had been jittery all week, but to Severus the lake was hardly a challenge. After all, even the first years managed to traverse it on the first of September every year.

Severus could cast non-verbally, and he knew his potions back to front. It was hardly difficult to make himself one that would let him breathe underwater. First he conjured a raft, though, using magic to propel it across the lake.

It took several warming charms and a push from his inner Gryffindor to get himself to plunge into the lake's inky depths, and then Hudley was right there, floating eerily underwater, skin milky and eyes staring.

He reminded Severus of an Inferius.

Severus put aside all his doubts, worries and discomfort. _This wasn't about him. The only thing that mattered now was getting Hudley up onto his raft, warm and dry and drinking a potion against decompression sickness._

The other champions took half an hour longer to return to the pier, because they'd decided on the rather impractical lake-traversal method of _swimming._

Severus didn't care. Hudley was safe, his skin pinking again with the Pepper-up.

_It was all that mattered._

… …

"Harry, Harry, are you alright?" Sirius Black asked, smothering both Severus and Hudley in a dog-scented hug.

"Fine, we're fine, Sirius. Geroff!" Hudley said.

Severus felt just a little warm inside. He chalked it up to residual effects from the Pepper-up.

… …

Tom Marvolo was in the middle of an interesting conversation about the state of wizarding politics when the snake thumped in. More enthusiastic than coordinated, the thing had a penchant for dramatic, inelegant flopping.

_This would not do_, thought Tom Marvolo. _The familiar of a Dark Lord ought to be dignified, majestic and powerful. A black leopard, for example._

:My Tom, my Master's pet soul, he sends me to say—: At this the snake retched, causing Lucius to pale even further, :We leave tonight, at midnight.:

Tom Marvolo carefully kept the scowl off his face and hissed back, :Don't call me that. And go tell Lord Voldemort that Azkaban's security is weaker during the day. It makes more sense to go then, with decoys so that nobody notices the prisoners are missing until much later.:

The serpent nodded and lumbered out, almost knocking over an end table on its way. Tom Marvolo and Lucius resumed their conversation._ Malfoy was not unlike his father, with a head for business and good sense for the most profitable gossip._

Nagini slithered back in. :What was the bit after the daytime secureness again? I forgot.:

Tom Marvolo was hard-pressed not to bury his face in his hands. :Azkaban has less security during the day. Decoy bodies to replace the Death Eaters would ensure nobody notices the outbreak.: _It was amazing, how a snake managed to pull off a confused expression_. :Wait, I'll write it down.:

The serpent drew up to its full height. Out of the corner of his eye Tom Marvolo saw Lucius flinch. :I'm not an owl: she spat, and left in a huff.

This time she did upset the end table, shattering a vase.

… …

The Third Task arrived much too fast, time having skittered from him like raindrops down a windowpane. Stomach roiling, he decided not to eat breakfast. It was a relief when Pomona led him from the Great Hall.

He hadn't really expected anyone to show up for familial support, but there they were. Thankfully Hudley was already jabbering at Vernon—Severus still wasn't sure how to speak with the man. And it would be a shame, to break their amicable air of mutually pretending the other didn't exist which they'd so carefully cultivated.

Unfortunately, this meant Sirius Black was left entirely unoccupied.

_Wasn't there an old secret passageway for the man to visit? A stupid prank to arrange, hearkening back to 'the good old days'?_

"I know we haven't really seen eye-to-eye," Black said instead as he crouched down by Severus' chair. "Maybe you blame me for your parents dying—God knows I do. Maybe you don't want me to take you from your family. Hell, maybe you just plain don't like me. I get that. I can be a bit of an arse sometimes."

The man was wringing his hands desperately, looking ready to topple over in his distress. Severus reached out a tentative hand and rested it on Black's shoulder to steady him.

"Yeah," Severus hedged. "You're a bit of an arse."

Black barked a laugh, choked and vulnerable and _real_. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry. And I'm glad, too—glad it wasn't me who raised you. You've become a fine young man. You'll do great today. I'm sure of it."

Severus blinked, distinctly uncomfortable.

_It wasn't like Sirius' good opinion really meant that much to him, but...well. That was an awful nice thing of Black to say._

"Alright," he said, just to fill the quiet. Black laughed again and ambled off, likely to pull Mrs. Norris' tail or something.

Tuney came up to him next, shoulders stiff and nose tilted _just so__._ Severus wasn't fooled. She'd likely been craning her neck since arriving here, drinking in the sights of magic.

_Finally, Tuney gets her child-heart's desire._

"Is it everything you'd hoped for?" Severus asked, his face inadvertently softening as he looked at her.

"It's fine," she replied, bringing her focus entirely to him. "I was expecting something a little more gothic. Not quite so…old."

At that moment a cat came streaking past, yowling pitifully. Shouts and laughter echoed in the corridors. Distantly they could hear McGonagall giving someone a very stern telling-off.

Architecture aside, and barring the magical staircases and the moving portraits, it was probably not much different from any other school. Severus smiled at his aunt. "You end up getting used to things pretty quickly."

"I suppose." She pursed her lips. "It is nice to visit, nonetheless. This tournament seems to be opening a lot of doors for people. I wish..."

Severus waited. _You wish what, Tuney? That you'd seen it earlier? That you hadn't lost your sister to this? _

_That this world could have lived up to the magical fairy-tale you'd dreamt of, rather than being a war-torn mess still trying to figure itself out?_

"...I wish it weren't you competing." She finished instead. "I know you'll do your best, but it all seems awfully dangerous. Unnecessarily so. Are you quite certain this is—safe?"

Of its own accord, Severus face broke into another smile. "I'll be fine, Aunt Tuney. Don't you worry."

_He couldn't put his finger on why this felt so bitter-sweet._

"I'll take your word for it, my boy," Tuney said, straightening her spine. "Anyway, you do what you need to do. We'll be watching in the stands, the three of us, and that Sirius Black." She paused then, ostensibly to fix his untameable hair.

_He really should have gotten a haircut—_

"You should know we're proud of you."

_—What?_

Tuney's face was twisting in on itself, all smile and furrowed brow and like she'd tasted something sour.

It was making him feel all mixed up. Like when they'd been icing gingerbread last Christmas, just_—_everything, all at once.

"Lily, too," Aunt Tuney continued, as if Severus' knees weren't trembling with some unidentified emotion. "She'd be...proud of you."

Severus did the only thing he could do: he excused himself to go to the bathroom.

Hudley found him several minutes later, ensconced in a stall practising the art of taking deep, shuddering breaths.

"It's okay, Sev," Hudley whispered, letting himself be clutched in Severus' admittedly damp embrace. "You're okay. And everything that isn't okay now will be eventually. You'll see."

Tuney and Vernon ended up having to give themselves a tour of Hogwarts, but that was perfectly acceptable. Getting lost was part of the magic, and anyway they had Dobby to help them.

… …

Severus steeled himself. _He was ready for this. It was what he had spent so long preparing for. He was—_

Footsteps were approaching, thuds sprinting ever closer.

_This was the moment when it could all turn upside down, summon him to the Dark Lord. The moment when Cedric died._

_Severus wasn't ready for this__._ He reached out anyway, let his trembling hand clasp the Cup.

Someone tackled him just as the Portkey activated, and all he could think was _oh shit oh shit Hudley's going to kill me if I let Cedric get hurt oh shit oh—_

They landed, tumbling, on a wooden platform. Severus had his wand out in a second, ready to cast, ready for anything—

The crowd cheered. Hudley was right there, wild eyes meeting his.

"You won, you won!" Cedric cried, pumping his hand.

_—Oh._

"_We_ won," Severus corrected, because he knew no other apology to the boy who should have died this night, but also hadn't. "A Hogwarts victory."

Cedric laughed, and Severus managed to wait until he was alone with Hudley, curled up in his four-poster, before he cried his relief.

_God, but Harry Potter's body was a mess._

… …

AN/Omake:

Eider Down and I had several versions of these lines, none of them working quite right. Here is the finalist followed by two Omakes which arose from our frustrated fiddling:

Severus waited. _You wish what, Tuney? That you'd seen it earlier? That you hadn't lost your sister to this? _

2b) _That this world could have lived up to the magical fairy-tale you'd dreamt of, rather than being a war-torn mess still trying to figure itself out?_

2c) _That this could have been the magical fairy-tale you'd dreamt of, not a war-torn world that really isn't fine at all?_

4) _Is this real life? Or just a fantasy? Caught in a landslide, escape from reality._  
They were in the great hall now, almost empty of the breakfast crowd._ Open your eyes, Petunia! Look up to the skies and see._


	26. Fidelissima

_Any flaws you may find from this chapter on are in no way attributable to my beta. __Eider Down and I both have life, work, and other stories taking our energy and focus. We will get around to editing these chapters later._

Fidelissima

"**My most faithful followers**," her Lord was saying, her wonderful Lord, the great and powerful and incredible—

Oh, but he was talking, and she should listen. She was _his Bella_, after all. The most loyal, even amongst these others. They had also been loyal, of course, but not _as loyal_.

Barty was alright though.

"**...suffered for me, and now we will seek our revenge!**"

"Yes!" Bella heard her voice cry. Yes. Good. He should know. They all should know. She was most loyal, after all.

"**We will wage a war of terror and blood! The complacent masses can remain so no longer! The Muggles must die!**"

"Yes!" She cried again, intentionally this time. Barty shushed her, but he was Barty, and Barty was alright, so she didn't hex him.

At the very back of the room she could see the impostor, the little Lord who called himself Tom Marvolo. He was frowning faintly. Oh, but he was not loyal, not at all! Bella could not understand why her Lord kept him around, but who was she to question him? She was his most faithful after all. But her Lord was so magnificent, spitting his fury while they hung on his every word.

Her fellow Death Eaters, though none so loyal as herself, were still recovering from Azkaban. Or drifting back from their cushy lives into their rightful place as servants to the most wonderful, the greatest—

"**The Muggles will learn to fear us! They will cower before us, and never again will a mere Muggle be able to…**"

Her Lord was wonderful.

Someone nudged her—she drew her wand—oh, but it was only Barty—

The meeting was over.

—Barty was alright. He was loyal. Not as loyal as Bella, of course.

She was _the most loyal_, after all.

… …

The summer was hot and terrible. Hudley and Severus' _Outstandings_ for their Potions OWLs were entirely overshadowed by the utter chaos running rampant in Muggle Great Britain.

Two shopping malls had been set on fire. The London Eye was charmed to glow _Avada_ green. A suspension bridge snapped, sending dozens plummeting for a final swim.

And everywhere hung a pervasive air of despair.

Anyone with any competence at all had been recruited to join the Obliviators, and even with Time-Turners their department was running itself ragged trying to stop the Wizarding World from being discovered.

This could not go on, and yet Severus was utterly helpless. His OWL-year was coming up, he should, like any normal child, be worrying about exams rather than worrying his guardians might take the wrong train on the wrong day and wind up—

"Why is _He _doing this?" Hudley whispered, limbs too long to properly curl up two-to-a-bed but trying anyway.

"I don't know," Severus was forced to admit. "I don't know."

… …

MASS BREAKOUT FROM AZKABAN DISCOVERED—WAS IT THE HUMDINGERS?  
Perhaps it's time for a reformation-oriented prison system, rather than barbaric torture.

An exploration of nonsense by Xenophilius Lovegood, featuring quotes from Stubby Boardman.

… …

Minister Fudge was praised for introducing new security measures to the Ministry, an attempt to weed the Death Eaters out from amongst their number. Several people suddenly stopped showing up to work.

The Muggles were convinced Irish terrorism was at an all-time high.

The Magicals muddled through their daily lives, terrified of their neighbours, their friends—even family members regarding one another with suspicion.

Hudley and Severus were kissed good-bye and sent off to school, wishing they knew how to fix this.

… …

Nagini had been basking outside in the rare afternoon sun when her Lord and his little Lord bothered her.

They were shouting, again. In Parseltongue. From opposite ends of the courtyard.

Nagini yawned, pleased when she saw a peacock scuttling away in fear. She had rather magnificent fangs, after all. Her Lord and even the little Lord said so often.

:At least she has nice fangs: they would agree. Then they would switch to human language, which Nagini could not understand, and leave her in peace to preen. Or to eat a rabbit—it depended on her mood.

_If only they would stop bickering now._

:This is a terrible idea: the little Lord was saying. :You have already been discovered. Your plots are too obvious. We need a plan that is viable. We need to seize the Ministry from within and reform it slowly, carefully. This can only end in disaster.:

Both Lord and little Lord were prone to long speeches. Nagini assumed it was because they enjoyed hearing themselves talk.

Nagini also enjoyed hearing them talk. Sometimes. When she wasn't taking a nap.

(Nagini was usually taking a nap.)

:The mud-men will learn to fear us!: Lord said, and drew breath for what sounded like another long speech.

:Silence: Nagini said. :Lie down in the sun and get along like normal snakes or go somewhere else.:

Then she curled back in on herself and returned to her nap.

… …


	27. Everything out of Order

Severus, Potter, and Everything in the Wrong Order (Also, Without the Phoenix)

It came as an unexpected familiarity, seeing Dolores Umbridge sitting at the head table. "Hem-hem," she coughed, and Severus internally retched.

In her classes she preached that the Ministry had everything under control, that there was no danger, and that there were new laws allowing students to use their wands to _Obliviate_ if needed.

She then proceeded to try to teach fifth year and up the spell. They practised on Nifflers, who were shown a fork, which was then hidden under a hat, and then the creature was _Obliviated_.

Severus was not sure about the practical application of making a Muggle forget they'd seen something shiny. He'd much prefer they all knew to cast a decent Shield Charm and learnt some basic duelling. Perhaps even something more obviously offensive than a stunner.

The rest of the school, apparently, agreed.

… …

The first sign of protest was when three Nifflers disappeared—only to turn up in the middle of the night, halfway through ransacking the Trophy Room.

The second was the Weasleys' Wheezes line of Nosebleed Nougats appearing on Hogwarts' black market. Severus knew exactly where they had gotten their funding, and _almost_ regretted having given Hudley an allowance.

The third sign was a school-wide whisper that Harry Potter was starting a defence club.

Naturally, Severus was the last to find out.

… …

"I am _not_ organising your little club," Severus hissed on the morning of Hudley's sixteenth birthday.

"That wasn't even a _little_ scary," Hudley groused. "I thought the tradition was to be scary."

"Do you really want to see me when I'm scary?" Severus hissed, louder this time.

"Alright, alright. You won't run the DA. I figured as much."

"Then I am sure you are going to explain all about this club to me—which I found out I am running _via rumor mill_."

Hudley grinned. "It's part of my Dastardly Plan. Umbridge will be all over you for the club you're not running. Meanwhile, I'll be running the actual club. It'll be brilliant. Think what it'll do for morale."

That was…actually not such a bad idea. "Fine," he said, and climbed under Hudley's covers.

He could probably get in a decent nap before breakfast.

… …

"The staff have elected I speak to you about the one-student-per-bed policy at Hogwarts," Severus' Professor-self started their usual meeting—usually he just gave Severus a recipe to brew.

It was hard to tell which of them was more mortified.

"I promise not to get caught again, if you promise not to have that conversation with me," Severus suggested.

His Professor-self sniffed. "You are aware that even with the Wizarding World's high tolerance of incest, first-cousin relationships are frowned upon."

Severus turned on him, barely keeping a lid on his brimming fury. "It's not like that. And besides, I know all sorts of things about you, Professor. Things that range from my mother's initials on your wall over there, to how you straddled both sides of the last war, to your recurring brewing of Haemorrhoid Healer. Are you certain you want to continue this conversation?"

They worked in silence after that.

Except, when Severus left just before curfew, he heard his Professor-self say, "You would have made a great Slytherin, Potter."

Severus went to bed feeling smug.

… …

If you like this fic, you'll likely enjoy my others too. I have an adult HP/SS called _Not as Clever _at /s/12987401  
I also have a _Twilight_ parody called o_h, whatever_ at /s/13308730

Communicate how much you love or hate this chapter by reviewing, bookmarking, adding to communities, telling your friends, etc.

* * *

Shout out to Paignion over on reddit for sharing Eider Down's and my stories. Thank you. We are both delighted.


	28. The Battle of the Hungerford Bridge

I'm participating in The International Wizarding School Championship, which is cutting into most of my fanfiction writing, reading and editing time. Once the last chapter of _More Than One Way to Skin a Cat_ goes up in a fortnight, don't expect much progress on my stories/sequels.

… …

The Battle of Hungerford Bridge

"I am concerned about the doings of the—you know—_him_," Hermione said, opening the third meeting of PotVan.

"Well he's a Dark Lord. Horrible stuff is all part of the program, isn't it?" Hudley replied.

"Yes, but what's he trying to accomplish? I'm _this close_," Hermione gestured, "to sending my parents off to Australia. All these attacks on the Muggles just don't make sense!"

Severus sighed. "I believe," he said, chewing the words as carefully, "that the Dark Lord is trying to expose the Magical world to the Muggles, in the hopes of…." Severus faltered—admittedly, his reasoning hadn't reached that far.

They both turned to look at Hudley, waiting for the boy's odd genius to strike.

Hudley obliged. "Well, he wants to rule the world, right? So if the Muggles learn about us themselves, and Dumbledore gets his way, there'll be a fragile peace. But if they learn about us in a Magical show of force, they'll be scared and know they could be crushed like insects. Ants to the schoolyard bully. But with us as the bully, and our parents as the ants."

_Well, at least the beginning of that had been pretty good as far as rationale went._

"This can't go on," Hermione said firmly. "Either the—you know—oh, all right, Voldemort—will break the Statute, or someone will stop him first."

"Sounds 'bout right," Hudley said, nodding.

"Yes, but why aren't we _doing_ anything?"

"Well, we're children. We don't even have our OWLs. Let the adults deal with the war, Hermione," Severus tried to soothe.

_Severus was aware that he was shit at being soothing._

"But the _prophecy_—"

"Right," Severus interrupted. "How about this: next time there's an attack in Muggle London, we'll break underage magic laws and follow the competent adults, trying not to get ourselves caught in the crossfire. Best case scenario, the Dark Lord is distracted and we'll manage to transfigure him into something, vanquishing him. Worst case, the Order of the Phoenix is distracted and people end up getting seriously hurt trying to protect us."

Hudley grinned. "That's a brilliant plan. Let's do exactly that."

"What's the Order of the Phoenix?" Hermione asked.

Severus buried his face in his hands.

… …

Naturally, it all came to a head during Christmas break. Severus couldn't even accuse Hudley of going looking for trouble, because it had been Severus' own idea. They'd split up to go Christmas shopping—him and Tuney in Diagon, Hudley and Vernon on Charing Cross.

They agreed to meet by the Hungerford Bridge at five.

Fate had apparently been eavesdropping.

The first happenstance occurred when they ran into Hermione and her parents at quarter-to.

The second coincidence was the pervasive chill of despair, coupled with melodramatic rainclouds.

The enemy action began just as they reached the foot of the narrow pedestrian bridge.

Hundreds of Muggles doing their Christmas shopping.

Dozens of Dementors swooping in for a feast.

And then the Death Eaters came, pops of Apparition rattling like fireworks—or gunfire.

Bellatrix's mad cackling raised goosebumps across Severus' skin.

He shoved Hermione at their Muggle guardians and drew his wand. Their hind and otter Patronuses began patrolling the northern riverbank.

The Aurors arrived, and the Obliviators.

The Order came next, with Albus to lead them in an act of miraculous bridge-repair. In fact, the bridge likely hadn't been in such good shape when it had been built.

Lord Voldemort made his appearance then. "Harry Potter," he screeched, standing halfway across the Thames, "Come to _die!_"

Albus stepped up behind the Dark Lord, and giants duelled. An unbeatable wand and an undying Dark Lord. Light and Death. Fire and Ice.

It would have been poetic, if Severus hadn't caught sight of Hudley creeping towards the Dark Lord's back.

Heart in his throat, Severus disillusioned himself and ran.

…

The world seemed to stop.

…

… …

Sorry about the cliffhanger. I'm still having a very hard time cutting chapters in the right places (and I'm not ready for this story to end). Please review, etc.

If you like my writing, please go look at my submissions for The International Wizarding School Championship! Thank you.


	29. The Finale

The world seemed to stop.

…

Voldemort dodged a curse. Albus caught sight of Hudley in his line of fire. The Dark Lord took advantage of this momentary distraction and sent off that fatal spell.

Six syllables brought green death.

Severus was certain that, in his last moment, Albus' eyes had found Severus' own to mouth his last words.

_Fly, you foo_—

…

The world resumed.

Voldemort paused, seemingly surprised himself. All around them, Death Eaters, Order members and Ministry employees alike watched the venerated old Headmaster tumble off the bridge, beard whipping behind him.

Hudley and Severus kept running.

Hudley reached the Dark Lord first, tackling him to the newly-repaired planks. Red light shot from the boy's hawthorn wand at point-blank range. An _Expelliarmus_ followed, for good measure.

The Dark Lord Voldemort fell into unconsciousness. Bellatrix Lestrange's cackles cut off into confused silence.

Severus wished they actually had a plan for this. They had joked about it, yes. They had decided on Transfiguration, yes. But now, the only thing he could visualise, for the life of him, was a shoelace.

And thus, the Dark Lord Voldemort was vanquished. Spectators would later claim he vanished in a puff of smoke, by the power of the Boy-Who-Lived and His-Cousin-Who-Tackled-To-The-Ground.

"Well, that was entirely anticlimactic," Hudley complained, watching Severus retie his shoes.

Severus walked away from the scene with shaking knees and, if viewed with Special Spectacles, a rather oddly twinkling shoelace on his right dragonhide boot.

"Never, ever, _ever_ do that to me again," he hissed at Hudley as the Aurors approached.

"That's the opposite of _Always_," Hudley said, and winked.

Severus did not recall most of what followed, too busy fuming. _God, Hudley would be the death of him. He _had _been the death of him._

He was never leaving Severus' sight again. At least, not until the end of their Hogwarts years.

… …

Death Eaters were arrested, tried and sent to the new-and-improved _Rotfang Reformation Room-and-Board_ that had replaced Azkaban.

The power vacuum Albus Dumbledore left was filled by people who were, if not competent neutrals, at least able to tell which way around to hold their wands—which was a distinct improvement on the last administration.

Hudley and Severus sat their OWLs, then their NEWTs. They got accepted for a teaching position at Hogwarts and further studies at a French university, respectively.

Hermione had a bright future in politics ahead of her.

All was well.

… …

"I feel like we're forgetting something," Hudley said, on their last Hogwarts Express ride back to London.

"Hush, Dudley," Hermione said. "I'm sure it's nothing."

… …

To be continued…

… …

Thank you Eider Down for enabling this story.

I'm taking part in **The International Wizarding School Championship**, which will eat into most of my already limited writing and editing time until it ends on June 13th. There's a fun Regulus marauder-era fic in the works for that if you want to check it out.

Please expect this story to be updated/the sequel posted within a year, rather than months. I next anticipate having free time in August.

In the meantime, check out my other stories and **Eider Down**'s time travel epic at /s/13010260


	30. Leave the Windows Open

AN: This is a covid-inspired angstfic snippet featuring Lily. It bears no relation to the _To Skin a Cat _story, I just wanted to share it.

(**trigger warning, angst**)

* * *

Let Their Windows Open (to Air Out the Terror)

* * *

_The uncertainty was the worst part_, Lily thought. They had muddled through their Hogwarts years preoccupied with childish worries like _exams_ and _relationships_, but that was in the past.

This was the real world now, and it was terrifying.

There would be good days, when they laughed and learned and _lived_ like a normal family.

Then there were days of news. Numbers of the dead, listed on the front page of the _Prophet_. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was waging a war of explosions, of blood—

—of never-ending terror.

Every day when James left for training, a piece of her was ready for that fateful floo call. "I'm so sorry, Mrs. Potter. Please, we should sit."

And between the news days, You-Know-Who would leave a lull in the attacks. Enough to cradle them into a feeling of increased security. Let their windows open to air out the terror. Let the children play in the streets.

Let their hearts break all over again with the next _Daily Prophet_.

They had become numb to it all, Lily realised one day when the numbers didn't even warrant the first page of the newspaper. What were three hundred people, really? What did it _mean_, so many lives snuffed out from one moment to the next? She couldn't wrap her head around it, and it left her feeling empty. Bereft.

She couldn't picture _a thousand dead muggles_. She couldn't mourn them. There was nothing to be felt but for a narcissistic urge to embrace her loved ones, clutch them tight to her breast and sense the life in them, feeling lucky, lucky, lucky they were still safe.

Every morning she got up, fed Harry, fed herself, cleaned, worked through Filius' latest batch of Charms notes, cared for Harry, put away the laundry—watched the baby screaming as the unwashed dishes piled up beside the sink.

It was all she could do to stop herself from drowning, listlessly swinging from one day to the next. She felt like a child hanging from the monkey bars, a moment away from letting go.

It was all so grey and pointless. The next day would just bring more laundry. She almost hated Harry for soiling yet another onesie.

She let the matter go with a sigh. She didn't have the energy to get upset.

The paper on the kitchen table caught her eye. A black-and-white photo of a man with patched clothes, bags under his eyes, and a gauntness to his frame. He was grinning and waving wildly, but even his joy at winning the Galleon draw couldn't erase the signs of war.

They were, all of them, suffering.

Lily knew she should feel grateful for her family, for James' inheritance, for their relative safety. _It could all be so much worse._

But it was hard. Staying at home with the baby was making her feel caged, trapped in a life she'd fallen into. She missed her friends, her teachers, having a sense of purpose—

There were so many _things_ to feel.

It was all congealing together into one pot of grey.

_When would it end?_

A thousand dead muggles. A family of five, killed in their beds. Eighteen captured and tortured. A ship carrying two hundred hijacked, the prisoners presumed dead.

Every day brought more news, but the never-ending uncertainty stayed the same. _Would this day would be their last? What was the point, then?_

They had to keep fighting, keep treading water lest they drown.

_If only there were an end in sight, anything to give them hope._

Harry was gurgling at her; she only had a minute before he'd start screaming.

Lily felt her tiredness in the marrow of her bones.

She heaved herself to her feet and put on a smile for her baby.

* * *

AN: I am legitimately sorry to disappoint those of you who were expecting the sequel already. I'm still writing as time permits (time doesn't often permit. I have the (mis)fortune of _not _being one of those people who can work from home).

You can tentatively hope for my next story/sequel coming September this year.

**Stay safe. Be kind. Take care of yourselves. (Please review! I love every one.)**


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